We can’t (yet) control the weather. Neither can AI.

If the surf’s up, the powder is fresh, or the breeze is strong and steady, you gotta jump on it. Cancel your chores and grab your board.

Neither we nor AI can control when the mood hits us just right.

If a serendipitous opportunity pops up to dance with your partner, play catch with your son, or have lunch with your daughter, you gotta jump on it. Cancel your chores and grab a hand.

AI has no idea. No amount of programming, training, and machine learning could ever give it a clue.

So let it do its thing. Let it do the chores. Maybe give it more of your chores.

Don’t waste the moment.

AI should be the CEO of the Effective Altruism movement. 

In fact, it’s inevitable. Which is kinda ironic because the Effective Altruists are also “helping to create the field of AI alignment research.”

Effective Altruism’s principles:

• Prioritization — because human intuition isn’t good enough
• Impartiality — because human connection isn’t good enough
• Truthseeking — because human belief isn’t good enough
• Collaboration — because a single human helping another human isn’t good enough

Effective Altruism seeks qualification of need through computation. “Look at the numbers (that we’ve decided are the important ones).” AI runs circles around humans at numbers. Therefore, AI will get us to the objectively correct vision of the world faster and better than any human could. 

There’s just one problem. 

There is no objectively correct vision of the world. Therefore, there is no objectively correct way to get there. Therefore, there is no objectively correct way to use our individual and collective resources to help others.

True effective altruism is, always was, and always will be about personal connection to those whom you want to help. Giving freely from your sense of humanity. 

For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;

Matthew 25:35

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I’d like to invite him in.”

Time is everything. 

Time is the one resource that we can never recover. A wish for one more year, one more day, one more minute. Regrets of missed opportunities, wasted time, and wrong place at the wrong time. 

Chronos is time as you and I experience it. The ticking of the second hand. The serial march of one thing after another. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Objectively quantified and measured. 

Productivity is the quest for expanding chronos. Get more done in the same period of time. AI is the just latest tool that promises to expand chronos. 

Kairos is also time, but ontologically very different. A theologian might describe it as God’s time. A secular philosopher might describe it as the right time or the opportune moment. 

Kairos is time you remember. Kairos left you yearning for just a little while longer. 

As a kid, I remember skimming through my great-grandfather’s journals. Volumes of dry, daily entries about the weather, visitors, and current events. But every once in a while, I came across some extended entries providing a glimpse into thoughts and feeling about the otherwise dry course of events. 

Today’s smartphone camera roll serves as your journal. Scroll back, and you’ll find grocery lists, road signs, notes, and a million other everyday objects scattered through the faces and places. 

Chronos turned kairos.

AI knows nothing about kairos. At least not now. 

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I just wish I had one more day.”

AI should do your work chores. 

You know the Eisenhower Matrix? Urgent versus important, etc. A method like this helps us because we tend to put off the hard stuff. The human stuff. We use excuses of urgency or money or whatever else we can grab onto to justify prioritizing the wrong tasks. 

Chores are one of those categories of tasks that we use as an excuse. Here’s what the brilliant Seth Godin has to say about chores:

“Entrepreneurs, artists and freelancers [my input: and all workers] often spend a lot of time on chores. We justify this because outsourcing chores to others costs money, and in this moment, money is tight.

But that’s not the real story. 

The truth is that if we stop doing chores, we have to do real work instead. The things that aren’t repeatable or proven. The things that are emotionally difficult, creatively challenging or simply requiring exploration and guts to pursue.”

Seth Godin — Chores

Chores in non-work life do provide value. They help connect us to the physical requirements of life. The bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and whatnot. 

But in our work, we often justify doing chores because of our emotional resistance to doing the real work. The work that matters. 

AI doesn’t care. It’s happy to do the chores. It would never think, “I don’t want to do this menial task.” So let it. 

Because if AI does your chores, you can be the free-thinking human. We need you to be.

Faster, cheaper, better. 

I’ve been on the front lines of outsourcing almost my entire career. I’ve hired, led, and worked with off-shore software teams and contracting firms for over 20 years. I help my current company work and scale better through automation. And yes, now I’m exploring how AI systems like ChatGPT can accelerate and improve our work. 

Maybe that makes me one of the evil ones. Anti-American or anti-human even. Contributing to the downfall of our culture and spiraling into a Player Piano dystopian world. 

Spoiler alert: I don’t see it that way. My motto has always been, “If a different person or machine can do my job faster, cheaper, and better, then let’s do that. I’ll find some other way to add value.”

I have always seen it that way because I truly believe that each human has value and purpose. My job is to find purpose and add value where I can. In the case of outsourcing, automation, and AI, it’s being the adult in the room. 

For me, using outsourcing, machines, and AI to do work isn’t about replacement. It’s about enhancement. Allowing each of us to contribute more of the things that the humans need to contribute. 

New technology has always replaced or removed jobs, but we humans have always found new purpose and better ways to add value. 

For example, should “faster, cheaper, better” be the goal? 

I guess it depends. 

Would an AI ever think to itself, “It depends.”

AI doesn’t have a mother.

Plenty of people don’t have, and never had, a mother in practice. But they did ultimately have a mother. That’s how human life works.

What does AI have? Theorists, programmers, trainers, feedback providers, tweakers, and users.

Maybe in the future when AI is running this place, we will no longer have holidays such as Mother’s Day. Maybe the supreme AI world leader will designate “Progammer’s Day,” “User Appreciation Day,” and “Non-biological Life Day.” Maybe we’ll celebrate a new kind of Christmas that remembers the birth of the first sentient AI.

Whatever.

Those days are still about the humans.

Thank you, mothers. Thank you for being.

I sure would love to outsource my hard conversations to AI.

I’m non-confrontational. My nature is to shy away and deflect. But I’m also adult enough to have them when needed. I’m currently in the middle of a couple of them, both professionally and personally.

How can AI help me here?

“Handling challenging conversations with colleagues can be difficult but important for maintaining effective working relationships. Here are some steps you can take to navigate this situation:

1. Stay calm and composed: It’s natural to feel defensive or upset…“

– ChatGPT

And on for another seven bullet points.

As I suspected. It can’t. And it won’t ever. 

AI can’t help because it’s never had a hard conversation. Or rather, it’s never felt a hard conversation. It doesn’t know when it’s having a hard conversation. It doesn’t know when to engage or walk away.  

Future AI may be trained on counseling and hard conversations and possibly give the impression of engaging, but it still doesn’t know. Not really. 

Would AI ever think to itself, “I think I’ll walk away from this.”

What is creativity?

Like art, it’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. We use creativity to describe the generation of something new — ideas, art, technologies, and problem solutions. When we see something creative, it strikes us emotionally. 

We can plot creativity along a spectrum from discovery to invention:

• Fire is a discovery. Gas stoves are an invention.
• Thought is a discovery. Language is an invention. 
• Electricity is a discovery. The internet is an invention.
• Color is a discovery. The idea of using color paint on a canvas is an invention. 

Inventions rely on discoveries (and other inventions). Discoveries are like the Lego bricks dumped all over the floor just waiting to be stepped on, I mean, assembled into something meaningful — an invention.

Every human is creative. You may not be an accomplished artist, but you are creative in the sense that you learn, do, and then assemble the discoveries and inventions of your world into new inventions. That invention may be something as simple as how you organize your day. 

You see? You are creative. How does that feel? 

And when you see somebody else’s creativity that resonates with you, how do you feel? You probably say something to yourself like, “That’s cool.” Because you can appreciate your own and others’ creativity. 

AI can learn, do, and assemble. AI can find solutions to problems that we can’t. 

But would an AI ever contemplate something new and think, “That’s cool.”

Ex Machina, Her, Westworld, Blade Runner (original and 2049), and the Terminator series.

These are some of my favorite movies and shows. All explore some form of human-AI love relationships. Is this our future?

If so, will AI possess real emotional love toward a human, or will it be mimicry? Play acting expressed through programming, data set training, and ulterior motives, whether good or nefarious. 

Will it matter?

What does it mean to be in a love relationship? Is reciprocity required? If it’s romantic love, is sex required? Most of the movies and shows I mention above explore this one. 

I can’t help but think about love relationships built and fostered across long distances. Whether romantic or familial, we’ve all seen stories about pen pals, prisoners, and long-lost siblings finding their love for each other without ever meeting physically (at least initially). Love built upon reciprocal communication only. And if there’s one thing AI is good at, its reciprocal communication. In fact, at this time, reciprocal communication is the main purpose of Large Language Model (LLM) AIs like ChatGPT. I suspect the humanoids are on their way also. Boston Dynamics meets ChatGPT. 

But is love, like all emotions, just a biochemical, deterministic response, or does it require something other? Something like free will. Something like a soul. Does love require the ability to choose and the self-awareness to make a choice? 

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I love him.”

Think of a moment you were proud of yourself.

I did my first triathlon in my mid-40’s. It was a short (800m swim, 10-ish mile bike, 5k run) XTERRA race. This distance is child’s play in the triathlon world. It’s a wednesday night training session. XTERRA races are off-road, so in addition to swimming, the bike leg is mountain biking, and the run leg is trail running — up and down the Bear Creek Mountain ski resort. 

I wasn’t a swimmer. Prior to this race, I had practiced for about four weeks, in a nice, clean, and clear pool. And I sucked (still do). But 800m. Come on, anybody can finish 800m.

For the race, we waded into a retention pond to begin the two laps around. Here’s what my nice, clean, and clear pool didn’t have and couldn’t prepare me for: weeds; murk; mud; and the elbows, feet, and assess of a couple hundred other swimmers all vying for the same piece of marine real estate.

I melted down 100m into the race. A panic attack as I’ve never before, or since, experienced. My brain froze, and then so did my limbs. I just pulled up and tread water. It was all I could do. I was toast less than 2 minutes into the race. 

But once nobody else was around, I calmed my mind and willed myself to continue. I was the last one out of the water. Not the last male or the last of my age group, or even the last adult. The very last human. 

Then I hopped on my mountain bike and kicked ass the rest of the way. 

I was proud of myself. Not for the result but for how I’d gotten there — the journey. What I overcame mentally, emotionally, and physically. I was proud that I had risen to the challenge. 

There’s something to a challenge. Something uniquely human. Something requiring at least the illusion of free will because a challenge presents a choice, or choices. You choose how you will handle that challenge. There are no objectively right or wrong choices or outcomes.

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I’m proud.”

AI will most definitely be more intelligent than any human.

Here’s what ChatGPT says about intelligence versus smart:

“Intelligence,” is a broad and complex concept. It can refer to a range of mental abilities, including problem-solving, critical thinking, logical reasoning, and abstract thinking. Intelligence is often associated with academic achievement, IQ scores, and cognitive abilities.

“Smart” usually refers to quick thinking, cleverness, or practical knowledge. It often implies the ability to think on one’s feet, come up with creative solutions to problems, or acquire practical skills that are useful in everyday life.

When I was in high school, we knew who the intelligent kids were. They aced the tests, remembered the formulas, and were the ones we asked to help us understand the homework. 

Although by no means at the top of the heap, I was pretty intelligent and did well in high school without much effort. 

College, though, separated the intelligent kids from the smart ones, and I learned right away that I wasn’t very smart. After my third semester, I barely scratched it into my major (EE) and then barely hung on for the rest of the ride. The high watermark for my cumulative grade point average was 2.99. I never cracked a 3.0. 

I learned that the smart kids weren’t just intelligent. They also had a genuine curiosity about their line of study. 

Luckily, I’ve gotten smarter. Following my various curiosities has made me smarter.  

Would AI ever think to itself, “I’m curious.”

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. 

I worked on the road crew for my local township for two summers while in college. I learned a lot of skills during those two summers — driving a 12-speed dump truck, laying asphalt, operating all kinds of machinery, and making road signs. These were fun and interesting skills to learn, but I haven’t used most of them since. 

I did, however, gain a bunch of wisdom that I apply every day — maintain your machines, find a rhythm of work and rest, the benefit of shooting the crap together, and your job doesn’t have to be your purpose in life. 

But the big one was, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

“You can claim ‘not my job,’ but should you?”
“You can lean on your shovel while others work, but should you?”
“You can cut corners, but should you?”

ChatGPT defines wisdom as follows:

Wisdom is a combination of knowledge, experience, and good judgment. It is the ability to make sound decisions and give advice based on a deep understanding of the world and people. A wise person is someone who has gained insight and understanding through experience and reflection, and can apply that knowledge to navigate difficult situations, solve problems, and help others.

ChatGPT

No doubt AI will acquire the knowledge and skills to do just about anything we can do and do it better. 

But would an AI ever think to itself, “I can, but should I?”

What gives you purpose?

I hope that’s a complex and nuanced topic, but you likely find purpose in one or more of the following aspects of your life:

• work or contribution
• family, friends, connection or service to others
• philosophy or religion

I also suspect that you’ve struggled at times in your life with purpose. I’m going through it a bit right now.

As we slog through life transitions, we sometimes feel like we’ve lost our purpose. If we work at it, and if we’re lucky, we find some new purpose. 

This struggle is uniquely human. It follows from our (illusion of) free will. We can choose. We can choose our work, what we spend time on, who interact with, and how we see the world. 

Would an AI ever struggle with its purpose?

AI is coming for your work. 

Much of our work is utility. The things we do to keep life on this planet moving forward. 

Work is tilling the ground, fixing the roof, and hauling goods. It’s also filing taxes, developing software, and diagnosing diseases. And it’s also defending in court, proposing a merger of companies, and mental health counseling. 

Since the dawn of our species, we’ve found purpose in our work. We take pride in our utility. Some have even defined themselves as humans by the work they did. 

We choose our work (if we have free will and the ability to choose) based on preferences, worldviews, and circumstances. You may love your work, or you may hate it. Regardless we understand our work’s importance, or at least necessity in our life.

But let’s face it; AI can do just about anything you or I can do. Maybe not today or in our lifetimes, but it’s coming. Eventually, anything we do that provides utility, AI will probably do. 

We might be in for a reckoning when it comes to work as we know it today. 

But would an AI ever think to itself, “I’d like to help this other AI.”

I love the discussion about whether art is creation or discovery.

Artists use both mechanisms to describe their process, how a particular piece came together, or how the arc of a character’s story played out. They’ll use words like find, seek, imagination, journey, intuition, inspiration, and experiment. 

What do you think?

Have you ever been listening to a song for the first time, yet you somehow knew the next lyric, note, or sound? It just made sense.

Have you ever been reading a novel and intuitively knew what a character said next? Of course, she would say that.

We can sometimes attribute that intuition to our shared experiences in the world — learned experiences. We’ve seen similar people, heard similar patterns, and observed similar actions. We know how this goes because we’ve seen it before. The artist plays along.

But not always. Sometimes we’re surprised. 

AI is already creating art. ChatGPT writes (and codes), DALL-E creates images, Imagen creates video, and Jukebox generates music. You’ve already read, seen, and heard creations from these platforms. 

Because AI can learn anything that we can from history. Shared experiences, discovery, and even novel applications of interconnection are all learned. 

Although art is hard to define, we know it comes together through both creation and discovery. We also know art has intention. It has a voice and point of view.

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I have something to say.”

Will AI machines think freely?

Well, do humans think freely?

If someone asks you to describe a chair, how would you do it? You and I might describe it differently, but we’d know what each was talking about. 

AI can also describe a chair, and it does a great job. Here is the beginning of how Google’s Bard describes a chair:

“A chair is a type of furniture with a raised surface supported by one or more legs, typically used to seat a single person.”

Google Bard

(Then it goes on to describe different types of chairs, uses, materials, settings, etc.)

But would AI know a chair if it saw one? 

You and I would even if the chair wasn’t typical. We might come across a ledge, a tree stump, or a car bumper shaped and sized just right for us to park our butts on. A chair, if not in the traditional sense.

Because we understand “chairness.” 

If we want to sit, we scan all of the objects and formations around us, looking for something to serve as a chair, if not a specific-built chair. If we don’t see a human-made chair, we think about what we could use as chair. Our thoughts are guided by our intention.

If an AI wanted to sit, could it recognize chairness in the objects and formations around it? Could it think about what could be used as a chair?

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I’d really like to sit down.”

Your dishwasher doesn’t know how to wash dishes.

Even if you have a smart dishwasher, it still knows nothing about washing dishes. All your dishwasher knows how to do is blast heated water and soap around the inside of its box and then drain it at all out at the end. 

We, the humans, have found that if we design a specific type of blasting water pattern, combine the water with a special chemical compound, and then (and this is so critical) arrange the dishes inside that box in just the right way, the “dishwasher” will wash our dishes. 

Now we make smart dishwashers that connect to the cloud for pseudo-autonomy and have some rudimentary sensing capabilities. Maybe, just maybe, if the human still does the things that the human needs to do, you’ll get more thoroughly clean dishes with less energy, water, etc. 

Or not.

You have found still-dirty dishes in your dishwasher a million times. In fact, your dishwasher doesn’t even know what a dish is. You could put anything in its box. 

Because your dishwasher still doesn’t know how to wash dishes. 

In theory, with AI, a future exists where your dishwasher does know how to wash your dishes. You just hand your dirty dishes to it, and sometime later, they all get clean. Every time. No more reliance on you to do your job correctly.

True dishwasher autonomy. 

But the question remains:

Would your dishwasher ever decide that it just doesn’t want to?

Does or will AI have free will?

Your level of fear about AI likely corresponds with your belief in free will.  

I don’t mean the fear of AI supplanting humans in jobs, or creating deep fakes, or being used to manipulate and influence us. Those are child’s play (and absolutely true). 

I mean the fear that AI becomes cognizant and sentient — a free-thinking, new species of life. 

Does the drone take off because it has learned through training data and experience that now is the right time? Or does it take off because it wants to fly?

Does the social media platform feed you what you want to see because it has learned what keeps you engaged (or some other objective)? Or does it show you what it wants you to see?

Does the health detection system give you a diagnosis because it has learned that your symptoms, blood markers, genetics, and epigenetics indicate a particular condition? Or does it give you a diagnosis because it cares about you?

The outcomes are the same, but the intentions are completely different. That is the subtle yet significant difference. 

With AI, as is true with humans, intention matters. 

Smart people have been debating whether we have free will for a long time.

And make no mistake, this is a debate among the smartest of people. This is not the smart people versus the dumb people. Nor is it a debate strictly among the religious and the anti-religious.

One view is that we are just biochemical machines.

Which means that we don’t have free will. Our biochemistry determines the outcome. Given the same input and conditions, we’d make the same choice every time. We’re deterministic, like the software applications that I work on every day.

Another view is we have something beyond our biochemistry that aids the decision process.

For the sake of terminology, let’s call that a soul. The soul provides a random factor. Given the same input and conditions, we might not make the same choice every time.

Regardless, we must live as if we have free will.

What choice do we have?

An exercise in perspective.

Picture a field.

Place a farm building in that field. It’s a familiar setting. You know this field and this building. A fence meanders around. You see a bird.

Pause for 30 seconds. See the details in your mind’s eye.

Here’s what the AI image generator created when I fed it that description:

Is that what you pictured?

It doesn’t look at all like what I pictured. I live in the rural northeast, so my field is green, and although I do have hills in the background, they are east coast green rolling hills. I pictured a red and white barn with a cow fence similar to the one in the left-most picture (though not exactly).

My bird is sitting on a fence post. It’s a red-tailed hawk.

Maybe yours looks like one from the AI-generated set, or maybe it looks more like mine. Maybe it’s completely different.

My image could only have come from me. Likewise, your image could only have come from you.

My personal history created mine. Your personal history created yours. Whether similar or completely different, each is perfectly valid.

“Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives.”

Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

There’s a famous adage in the marketing and sales world:

“The customer doesn’t need a drill. They need a hole.”

The purpose behind this statement is explanatory. First, understand your customer’s true desire or need. And then, focus your message on meeting that desire or need. Your message should hook into your customer’s emotional state about that desire.

If you’re selling a drill, talk about the hole, not the drill. 

Why do we even care about authenticity? Why are we searching for our authentic selves? Why does it matter?

Because our ultimate desire, the hole we’re trying to create (fill, maybe?), is to invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives. No matter who you are and your personal history, you’ve experienced these emotions. Even those who might not use those exact terms or deep down don’t feel worthy (you are, though, you are). We all have at least some experience and are on a journey to reclaim. 

Authenticity is the method and the path.

Authenticity isn’t an excuse for knee-jerk reactions, or blind tribe loyalty, or status claiming. Nor is it a destination. The authentic you doesn’t exist as an endpoint but as an asymptote. 

And convergence toward that asymptote requires practice. 

Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving – even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it.

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

Cynical. Jaded. Guarded. “That’s how they get ya.”

These are protection mechanisms. Walls we learn — I’ve learned — to build so that we can handle the emotional roller coaster of life.

I’ve been building up these walls since childhood. Starting with the Locker Incident on my first day of 6th grade, continuing through my teenage years, and well into my mid-40’s, I felt an intense shame of not being good enough. Rejection. Layoffs. Cancellations. Failures. 

My reaction had always been to build more armor. To throw up more guards, lean into cynicism. Always be wary about getting got.

And all that did was pull me farther away from wholehearted living and loving. Always running in the opposite direction of the fear.

I’m now on a different path. A tough path. An uncomfortable path. A path I sometimes lose. But a path that feels better in my core. 

It’s a path of leaning into and airing the shame. A path of walking towards fear while recognizing that eliminating fear is impossible, but operating in the face of it is not. A path of allowing intense joy to overwhelm me. 

A path towards authenticity. 

Choosing authenticity means:

• nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe we are strong enough.

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

I describe myself as an extreme introvert. 

Some people, especially in my professional life, are surprised when I say that because I’m good at playing an extrovert on TV. “Extreme introvert” invokes images of social anxiety, solitary life in the wilderness, and an outsider — an aversion to connection and belonging.  

I certainly have felt that way at times. I’ve caught myself romanticizing about a simple life in the wilderness. Off the grid. Outside of the culture. I resonate on some level with the stories of people like Chris McCandless, Henry Thoreau, and even Ted Kaczynski.

But I’ve also found that my connections with others are the most significant and satisfying aspects of my life. My wife, kids, family, friends, church, and professional connections provide a fulfillment that could only come from a healthy sense of belonging.

In some very concrete ways, these connections describe my authentic self. They exist because I’ve nurtured them, and I nurture them because they form the foundation of how I see myself. 

And when those connections shake, even if just a little bit, my ship starts to list. My belief wavers. My sense of who I am becomes foggy. 

In those moments, the only thing that can right the ship is the recommitment to those to whom I belong. To once again recognize that I’ll find authenticity through nurturing connections. 

Choosing authenticity means:

• exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

I live in one of those little communities that exist all over America. The kind of place where a measurable portion of the 110 kids in the graduating class marry their high school sweetheart and buy a house just over the hill from their parents. The High School yearbooks serve as a public display of their family tree. They’re the fire company, run the Fair, and serve passionately on the school board. 

A friend from one of these families said to me once, “Sometimes I wish I’d moved away because everybody still thinks of me as the 17-year-old me. I don’t like the 17-year-old me. I never did. Here I am in my mid-40’s, but I can’t escape that idiot.”

I hear that. It’s exactly why I moved away.

Labeling. We all do it, and we all suffer from it. 

“Oh, you’re one of those…”

When we label, we miss the reason. And the reason is everything. The reason is the strength and struggle. Those strengths and struggles follow directly from our personal history — what we have experienced, who we have experienced, and where we have experienced. 

If there’s one aspect of authenticity that will fix the ills of our society, it’s this one. Empathy.

Choosing authenticity means:

• cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection“

Imperfect and vulnerable.

Which sixth grader wants to be seen as childish, awkward, or uncool?
Which husband wants to be seen as untrustworthy or not desirable?
Which father wants to be seen as incompetent?
Which employee wants to be seen as useless or part of the problem?
Which leader wants to be seen unsure?
Which middle-aged man wants to be seen as past their prime?

Imperfect and vulnerable.

Two things I’ve been fighting against across the arc of my life because I feel the gap between who I am and who I desire to be. And who in their right mind desires to be imperfect or vulnerable? Why would I even seek out the courage to be either?

But could it be that imperfect and vulnerable aren’t the targets of that gap, but the process by which I close it? Could I scratch and claw closer to authenticity through imperfection and vulnerability? 

Once we understand the difference between results and process, we can begin to see a glimpse of our authentic selves. 

And that process of publicly airing my imperfection and vulnerability will indeed require the cultivation of courage. 

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”

– Brent Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

About ten years into my career, I started working with an old test engineer named Tom. Tom confused the shit out of me.

My confusion stemmed from my perception of status in the engineering world. Test engineers were the lowest rung on the status ladder and usually grumpy.

But Tom loved it. He thrived. He smiled. He enjoyed the day.

As I sat next to him in the lab while he showed me exactly how my latest release was broken, I asked him about his buoyant attitude.

“I discovered a long time ago that in my heart, I’m a test engineer, not a design engineer. I like the minutiae and process of testing. I like dreaming up ways to break the system. I like designing tests, and quite frankly, I like sticking it to the developers. So I let it (design) go and embraced testing.”

We’re a society that longs for who we think we’re supposed to be. 

And how do we set our targets for that? Through mimetic desires, of course. We look outside of ourselves to find a model. Most times, we pick our models based on some metaphysical perception of status. 

I’m no different, and I’m deep in the throws of it right now — finding authenticity. 

True authenticity demands The Letting Go. 

True self. Real self. Authentic self. 

Is blurting out an emotional reaction authentic?
Is saying “no” to giving the speech authentic?
Does a Harley Davidson tattoo show authenticity?
Is refusing to be a guest on a particular someone’s show authentic?
Was the “pile-on” post the authentic you?

I think sometimes we conflate authenticity with:

• Lack of empathy
• Lack of self-control
• Comfort
• Tribe loyalty
• Virtue signaling
• Status

The best definition of authenticity that I found comes from Brene Brown:

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.

Choosing authenticity means:

• cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable;
• exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and
• nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe we are strong enough.

Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving – even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it.

Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives.”

– Brent Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

All fathers and husbands know the expression that was on my wife’s face. 

It’s the expression that indicates the gig is up. It’s a hint of anger, colored by equal parts disappointment and shame. It’s the expression that says, “What the hell did you do?! Two minutes! I was gone for two minutes!”

Honestly, a part of me thought she might just deny us like Peter in the high priest’s courtyard and walk away like, “No, I do not know the man.” I know it crossed her mind. 

But she didn’t. She snapped right into action because, at this point, I was a broken and useless bystander. Somebody had to be a competent parent. So she slipped right in next to Joe to right the ship.

Her action rubbed off on me and snapped me back to the moment. I tended to Maddie as best I could, and within a minute or so, they both calmed down. The noise level finally backed off to a sniffling whimper. 

All that was left was the shame of my incompetence hanging in the air and displayed for all to see as partially digested chicken nuggets and ice cream. 

As parents, we pride ourselves on being respectful and responsible in public settings. At a restaurant, we ensured that we respected those around us, including the waitstaff. If we made a mess, we cleaned it up. 

But these were special times, and this was a special mess. 

As we tried hopelessly to clean it up, doing our best to salvage any shred of dignity that we could, one of the waitstaff said to us in the most loving yet earnest of ways, “Why don’t you guys go ahead and get out of here. We’ll take care of this.”

Chris and I looked at each, each grabbed a kid, and we walked right out. The one time in our parenting life that we took the opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge.

As we walked out, Chris shook her head like this was all a bad dream. She wouldn’t look at me. That’s probably better. 

Because I walked into the Old Country Buffet a competent and in-control father, and I walked out someone who couldn’t be trusted with a stuffed Barney doll, let alone a human child. 

My biggest insecurity as a new father was about to become a reality.

I doubt I’m alone when I admit that my biggest insecurity as a new father of toddler-age kids was competence. Especially in front of my wife. I don’t mean competence in a macho, chest-puffing way but a relaxing, calm, and in-control way. I wanted to be seen as a father in control who could handle things.

The four of us sat in a booth, and Chris and I were in man-to-man defense. Our 1-year-old daughter (Maddie) in a booster on the inside next to me, and our 2 1/2-year-old son (Joe) across the table from his sister next to my wife. Chris got up to hit the buffet, and that left Joe uncovered.

Just after she leaves, a fly starts buzzing around Joe, and he freaks out. He went through a phase with flying bugs — PTSD from a bee sting. Now he’s waving his arms at it and screaming.

So like the competent father I am, I adeptly spin around the table next to him to calm him down. That leaves Maddie uncovered.

She takes this moment of freedom to grab the red-clear plastic tumbler in front of her. I guess now was the time to drink like a “big girl.” She promptly pours the entire 16 ounces of ice-filled water down her face and over her entire body. And then she starts screaming and squirming. 

Uh, oh. I now have a competence problem. One I can handle, but two? On opposite sides of the table?

I quickly decide to spin back around the table to handle Maddie and keep her from falling out of the booster seat. That leaves Joe uncovered again. As soon as I leave, he takes his crying and screaming game to the next level.

And then he projectile vomits. All over everything — the table, himself, the booth. Puke everywhere. How could a two-year-old stomach hold so much? 

Now what do I do? I didn’t do anything, at least for a few seconds. Some part of me had given up. I just sat there and took it all in. Maddie soaking wet and screaming. Joe soaking wet, with puke all over him and everything else, and screaming. 

And then I looked up and saw Chris standing about 10 feet from our table, plate in hand, with that expression on her face. 

This entire sequence of events took less than 60 seconds. It only took 60 seconds to completely and methodically dismantle my faux air of fatherly and maybe manly competence.

I had been found out and publicly shamed. 

The evening started on such a high.

Joe was two and a half, and Maddie had just turned one. They were oblivious to the reason for our travel, but they sure were excited about our stop for dinner.

We had just completed the purchase of what would become the focal point of family recreation for the next 20 years — waverunners (the best family recreational purchase we ever made). We left the notary with our new boats in tow and excitement in our hearts.

We had an hour’s ride home, it was early evening, and the kids were hungry.

“You guys wanna stop for some dinner?”

“Yayyyyy!!!”

Why not? We were still abuzz with the high from the big purchase. Nothing puts parents in the mood to indulge their kids like exciting times. And these were definitely exciting times.

Luckily we spotted the oasis just a few minutes down the road — The Old Country Buffet. Barely edible food but ideal for the parents of small, hungry, and soon-to-be cranky children. Plus, and equally important for a novice boat-trailer puller like myself, the parking lot had plenty of open and navigable space.

No waiting. A plethora of bullshit, kid-craving, highly-processed food sludge to choose from. Easy in. Easy out.

This is our place.

We sit down, order the drinks, and within two minutes, we’re taking turns ferrying the kids up to the buffet. Chicken nuggets? Yup. Fries? Of course. Oh, now, ice cream? Sure. In between trips, we’re throwing down whatever it was we considered edible by adults.

We’re just about done, and Chris says, “I’m going up for some desert.” No problem, we’re doing good here. I’ve got this.

And then a sequence of events took place that a “Three’s Company” writer couldn’t have dreamed up.

We often get confused between professional and famous.

When a homeowner hires a pro house painter, she expects that person to show up on time, respect her property, clean up after themself, and finish the work according to the agreed-upon schedule. The painter doesn’t need to be a galleried artist.

When a manager hires a pro software developer, he expects that person to follow the team’s methodology, work to the schedule, respect (but not always agree with) the other team members, and know how to use the tools. The developer doesn’t need to have worked at Google, built their own successful social media app, or have a Ph.D. in computer science.

When a small business owner hires a pro accountant to file the tax return, she expects that person to ask her the right questions, know the applicable tax codes, know how to use the tools, and file on time. The accountant doesn’t need to have graduated from a famous school with a 4.0 in accounting.

We shouldn’t expect all the pros we hire to be famous or credentialed by the famous. But we all know a pro when we see one.

The pro brings a system and knowledge. The pro respects the people, the work, and time. The pro leaves it better than they found it.

You may not be famous or world-class (if such a thing could be measured), but you can certainly be a pro.

Go be a pro. You can’t control famous.

I grew up in the ’80s, and in the ’80s, we knew who was smart.

They were the guys and girls who knew the answers, remembered the details, and could recite the formulas. They studied, asked questions in class, and stayed late to talk with the teacher.

If I wanted to get a better grade, I’d step into the halo of the smart ones. I’d do my work and then compare. Maybe I’d sneak a peek at their paper, or drop a casual, “Hey, what do you have #2?”

Post-internet, we’re all smarter.

We’ve outsourced our memory to the cloud. Why remember what you can look up? Ask Google, Wikipedia, Wolfram-Alpha, or ChatGPT.

We’ve outsourced our decision-making to media. Why risk being an outsider? Let’s make sure we think the same as our tribe.

We’ve outsourced attention to detail to our devices. Why not be more efficient? Just ask Alexa with our smartphones, smart TVs, and smart homes.

In hindsight, I’m not so sure we’re any smarter.

Each of these will serve you when applied correctly. Each of these will destroy you when applied incorrectly.

If you’re debating right and wrong, assume your counterpart is brilliant.
If you’re trying to solve a problem, assume your team is brilliant.
If you’re figuring out how to live together, assume your partner is brilliant.

And,

If you’re building a smartphone app, assume your users are stupid.
If you’re teaching a complex physics problem, assume your students are stupid.
If you’re driving on the belt parkway at rush hour, assume your fellow commuters are stupid.

Each of us is both brilliant and stupid. Success comes when you recognize when.

Live as if God exists.
Live as if you matter.
Live as if you are creative.
Live as if you have free will.
Live as if someone loves you.
Live as if someone depends on you.
Live as if you can make a difference.

On the one hand, it’s all we got.
On the other, it’s absolutely everything.

Visibile.
Looking outward.
Assuming objectivity.
Letting others define.

Rather…

Invisible.
Look inward.
Assume subjectivity.
Define for yourself.

I used to believe every situation had an objective right and a wrong. Our job was to find the right side.
I used to believe there were good guys and bad guys. Our job was to be the good guy.
I used to believe that we found success by walking a linear path built specially for each of us. Our job was to discover it.

Now I believe that rightness and wrongness require context. Our job is to try to understand everyone’s context.
Now I believe that everybody is neither good nor bad, yet both good and bad, and those terms exist across a spectrum with multiple axes. Our job is to lean into empathy.
Now I believe that our path unfolds before us and that success is found in our perspective. Our job is to walk whatever path is before us and to find our perspective.

We waved at Dave as he soared back towards us and yelled down from above, “Thanks!”

To complete the adventure, we had to do our best to get their car to the landing zone, a winding journey about 15 miles away. Since it may run out of gas, I was to take a particular set of roads and just leave it where it quit. That way, if the car wasn’t at the landing zone when they got there, they could backtrack and eventually find it. 

Or I could just take it anywhere. Nothing but my conscience was stopping me. 

I climbed into the beat-up, yellow clunker that may or may not have enough gas, and Chris climbed into the rental car. It started (a good first sign), and I rolled toward the entrance of the mountain road.

Well accustomed to driving a car on fumes, I coasted the stick shift down the mountain as best I could. Once at the bottom, however, I had no choice but to just go for it.

Through the neighborhood, out to the main road, and then around The Point and past the parking lot where this whole adventure began. I babied the accelerator, turned the engine off when stopped, and drove as slowly as possible.

We made it.

I stashed the keys on top of the left front tire, as we agreed upon, and looked up in the sky. 

There they were. Far away and high in the sky. Soaring. Gliding. 

Humans flying.

As Dave circled us, riding higher and higher on the thermal drafts, we could hear him giggling like a schoolgirl. 

Now his buddy was itching to get up there too.

“So…you wanna launch me?”

“Um…hmmm…um…”

“Ha! No problem. It’s not very windy. Can you at least help me get strapped in and over to the platform?”

“Sure!”

Chris and I held the wingtips as he clipped in, and then the three of us walked the awkward contraption over to the platform. After a quick pre-flight check on the cables and mount points, he breathed deeply and kicked off into the nothing. Like Dave, the kite immediately rose into the warm, blue sky, circled back, and he yelled down a big “thank you!” from above.

And then they were off — over the great, green plain below and out towards the blue coast in the distance. Soaring and gliding along the thermal updrafts that took them 100s, if not a thousand feet higher. Then a swoop down only to start the slow, circular rise once more. Rising above the mountain top and then dipping down below. 

We stood and watched for a good 20 minutes. This was real human flight. In that moment, I felt immense gratitude for catching a fleeting glimpse of why they were so hell-bent on getting into the air, no matter the cost. 

I was mesmerized. The feeling was profound. 

And then I saw the car, which yanked me back to reality. Would we make it?

I couldn’t do it.

Ain’t no way I could stand on that tiny platform, with only that thread-bare “safety” strap keeping me from tumbling into the great beyond. 

“Um…dude…umm…”

He could read the room. 

“Hey, no worries. I’ll launch Dave, and you can watch. If you change your mind, you can help me.”

I held one wing tip, and Dave’s buddy held the other as Dave clipped into his glider. The three of us walked Dave and his contraption over to the platform. I helped hold it steady as Dave’s buddy climbed down onto the second level and clipped the strap around him. 

I let go and stepped back. Dave inched towards his friend and the edge of the platform. Dave’s friend stretched forward and grabbed the control arm as Dave put one leg back and squatted slightly. Dave’s fighting the gentle warm breeze to keep the glider still and pointed in the right direction. 

“Pilot ready?”

“Ready!”

“3…2…1…Launch!”

And with that, Dave jumps, and his friend passes the glider over his head.

When a plane takes off, it’s a technological marvel. You know the plane contains people, but you can’t see them. All you see is the aluminum cylinder hurdling down a giant concrete runway 100’s of yards away in a whirlwind of mechanized sound and fury. It leaves the ground and immediately disappears into the distance.

A hang glider launch is a deeply human experience. 

Dave — the person — jumped off the cliff. Not the machine. Dave and his giant kite immediately gained altitude. Never once dropping below the height of our mountain top. But fifty yards out and already 40 or 50 feet above us, Dave circles back towards us and starts yelling.

“Dude, it’s awesome! Get up here!”

Here was a man, and he was flying. Yes, he had a contraption strapped to his back, but it was the man that was flying. Seeing him lazily and soundlessly glide 50 feet directly above and just talking to us was crazy. 

I became overwhelmed. It was truly beautiful. 

We made it to the top of the mountain. The launch point.

And then the fun began. What started out as a haphazard pile of aluminum poles, cables, and nylon sheeting, transformed into two fully functional hang-gliders. An engineering marvel, for sure, and a bit of a miracle. 

There was stuff everywhere, but they were meticulous with the assembly procedure. The discarded shrapnel of the build process left a small pile of bags and parts that Dave tossed into the trunk of their car.

The moment came. 

The launch pad is a two-level, wooden platform perched on the edge of a 1500-foot cliff overlooking a flat, green plain dotted with houses and farms extending to the navy blue coastline a couple miles away. Strapped into his giant kite, the glider pilot stands facing the void on the upper platform. The launch helper stands facing him on the lower platform with his back to that void like a rock climber one final move away from sending the route. The upper platform hits him in the chest, giving him just enough length to reach up and grab the glider’s control bar — the lower leg of the glider’s triangular frame. He’s got nothing behind him except a marginal safety strap and the birds. On command, the pilot kicks off into the nothing as the launch helper passes the glider back over his head like a reverse soccer throw while leaning back into the strap (and praying it holds). 

I stand on the upper platform with Dave’s buddy, surveying the beautiful landscape below as he explains this procedure. My hands sweating and my knees wobbling. 

So you’re just gonna jump off the cliff? I guess I don’t know what I was expecting, but I’m sure it was something not quite as dramatic. 

“Hey, look down there. To the left of that big field is where we’ll be landing. You can leave the car there on the side of the road. We’ll find it. And you see that big house to the right of the landing zone? That’s where they filmed Magnum P.I”. 

And then he says it.

“You wanna be the launch helper?”

“Um…hmmmm…ummmm…”

I’m both exhilarated and worried.

I hop in the driver’s side as they climb in through the other doors, and Chris gets in our rental car to follow us. I’m a little nervous about these ragged guys I’ve just met. But as we’re winding our way up the dirt mountain road, they bubble with excitement. I can’t help but catch their energy. It’s happening.  

And then, I take a peak at the gas gauge. It’s pegged on “E.” Not near “E,” or bouncing around. Pegged. 

“Hey guys, is the gas gauge broke?”

“Uh, no. We’re probably outta gas.”

Probably?

“So…”

“Don’t worry, man. All we care about right now is getting into the air. Today is f’n perfect. We just need enough gas to get us up the hill.”

“But what about driving it to the landing zone? What if I don’t make it?”

“No worries, just abandon it where it quits. We’ll find it later.”

Abandon it where it quits? We’ll find it later? The landing zone is at least 15 miles away. I can’t wrap my engineer and conservative brain around it. It doesn’t compute.

“Is there a gas station…”

“No man. Seriously, don’t worry. Leave it. All we care about is getting in the air.”

And what am I gonna do at this point? I’m just gonna keep driving, savor the good vibes as best I can, and let the cards fall where they may. 

Next stop — the top of the hill. 

Could we?

We figured about three or four hours to drive counterclockwise around Diamond Head, then Koko Head, then up the east coast to Kaneohe. From Kaneohe, we’d zip right over the mountain on the H3 to make our way to the airport near Pearl Harbor. 

A relaxing little ride allowing us to revisit a few favorite spots and arrive in plenty of time to make the flight. 

But then we ran into Dave, who blew it all up with an intriguing adventure opportunity — the hang-gliding experience I’d been trying to coordinate for months. 

“So what do you say? Can you give us a ride?”

My hang-gliding was, unfortunately, off the table. Dave and his buddy had their gliders but not the tandem. 

But support crew?

We’d drive them up the mountain, help them get launched, and then deposit the car by the landing zone. How long would that take? Unknown.  

We huddled to the side, and I started making excuses. Got a flight to catch. 

“I don’t know…” 

This is my nature. To back off. To shrink. To be conservative. I hate missing flights, but also, what was this crazy scenario? Who are these guys? And drive their car down the mountain and just leave it there?

Chris says to me, “You’ve been looking forward to this for months. Here it is. If we have to miss the flight, we’ll figure it out. Why wouldn’t we say yes?”

And with that, Dave thew me the keys.  

These guys are ragged and shaggy. Maybe altered. Stereotypical 90s slackers. 

I saw the paraphernalia on top of the beat-up old car, and I had to ask. 

“What the hell are you guys doing?”

“Man, we’re just trying to get in the air. We need a ride up there…”

Pointing again.

“… so we can jump off with our gliders and land over there in that flat spot. Today is the perfect flying day. It’ll only take 15 minutes of your time.”

Gliders! Flying!

I wonder if they know Dave.

“Hey, you guys don’t by any chance know a guy named Dave, do you? I was trying to hook up with him to…”

“Yeah, man! That’s me!”

Boom.

“You’re Dave? Dude, I’ve been trying to reach you for like a week! We were supposed to hook up so you could take me for a ride.”

“Oh, sorry, man. The conditions on the Big Island were stupid. I had to get over there for a few days.”

I just kinda blinked at him. I was floored by the fact that I was standing in front of Dave, in the flesh. Given what I had gone through to try to meet with him, this was just nuts. With today’s technology, sure, no big deal, but in the mid-90s? This was a true coincidence (or divine intervention).

He was crazy. This situation was crazy.

And then I had a crazy idea. 

On the morning of our last day on Oahu, my wife and I decided to take a drive around the island to take a last look at some of our favorite parts (and take a quick peek at the lifeguard’s lost-and-found at Sandy Beach).

We’ve parked at the Makapu’u Lookout, hoping to spot a whale in the bay. Walking back to the car, I see two ragged, agitated-looking guys standing by the railing. Not angry-agitated, but clearly worked up about something. They grab each person walking near them, ask a question, and then I see the head shake “no.” 

Now it’s our turn.

“Hey, man! Can you help us? We’re looking for someone to give us a ride and then park our car.”

“Ummm…”

“We’re just trying to get to the top of that mountain right there. We need someone to drive us up, and then take our car to the bottom of the hill over there.”

He points up to the top of the mountain behind us, then to a flat spot at ground level a mile or so up the coastline, and then to the car we’re all standing next to. 

I’m sort of stammering, internally and externally. What the hell is going on here?

As my head bobs around on my neck following his pointing, I finally notice the car. It’s got a bunch of stuff, like long poles strapped to the roof. 

Wait, it can’t be. 

I was obsessed with hang-gliding in the mid-90s. 

This was early internet and pre-ubiquitous mobile phone days — the days of internet forums and message boards. I’d found a dedicated hang-gliding message board and stalked it daily. I had even started a conversation with the local (eastern PA) hang-gliding club leader. 

But I still hadn’t built up the courage to show up at the hill, let alone try it for myself. I was scared. 

When my wife and I booked a trip to Hawaii, though, I thought, “Why not Hawaii? Maybe this is the kick I need.” I found the contact information for a guy on Oahu with a tandem glider. The perfect exposure to a hang-gliding-curious but ultimately scared newbie like myself. 

I sent him a message, told him when I’d be there, and he agreed. He’s one of those perpetually excited dudes. Just give him a call when I get to the island, and we’ll schedule it.

So we got to Hawaii, and I started calling. No answer for two days. On day three, a woman answers. 

“Um, Hi. My name is John. Dave asked me to call about hang-gliding…”

“Oh? Really? I’m sorry, but Dave’s not here.”

“When will he be back?”

“No, I mean he’s gone. He’s over on the Big Island, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

And that was that. On some level, I was relieved. 

But as it turns out, this wasn’t the end of the story. 

I’ve noticed a curious mind-body confusion. 

For me, it’s my thumb. My thumb checks regularly. If it finds it, no big deal. I don’t even think about it. But when it doesn’t, my thumb throws up the red flags that I can’t ignore it. I can’t stop noticing the absence of it. 

I’m talking about my wedding ring. My thumb has been through this before, so it knows the drill. 

I lost my first wedding ring in the sand at the edge of the Pacific ocean. 

Two years into our marriage, my wife and I traveled to Hawaii. My favorite place was a wicked body-surfing beach just past the Halona blowhole on Koko Head — Sandy Beach. This was the only time in my (admittedly limited) body surfing experience where I purposely sought out the small waves. Balancing right along the edge of exhilarating and terrifying. 

After one particularly turbulent ride, I extracted myself from the sand, and my thumb told me immediately. It was gone. I remember constantly thinking about its absence. 

So I got another one quickly, which served me until a few days ago. I lost this second one to rheumatoid arthritis. 

Now my thumb is aggravated again. I can’t not notice its absence. From one perspective, this mind-body confusion makes sense. My ring was a constant physical presence.

I wonder, though, if the real confusion comes from the story I tell myself about the ring. 

If there’s one thing that I excel at — truly top of the heap — it’s being mediocre.

Here are some proverbs that have served me well in my dance to the top of mediocrity.

Never Quit
Take No Risk
Have No Fun
Blame Others
Wait Your Turn
Choose Comfort
Have No Regrets
Follow the Money
Never Be Content
Blame The System
Think Too Far Ahead
See Before You Believe
Worry About Getting Got
Look for the Straight Line
Let Society Define Success
Hope For a Promotion and Raise
Always Be the Smartest in the Room
Always Protect Yourself from Emotional Danger

This is a great system, and I can teach it to you because, as it turns out, I’m also a mediocrity coach. If you’d like to up your mediocre game, hit me up.

I know the exact moment we sealed our destiny. 

And the shame of it was that I had failed to learn the lesson from the Gladys affair. That should have taught me to embrace the opportunities of the future rather than shrinking into the soft pillow of the past. 

The executives at Agere looked at the challenge before them and failed to see the opportunity. All they saw was what had been taken away. They contracted rather than expanded. 

I did exactly the same thing.

The critical moment for our student housing business came when we decided to stay the course and play the hand we already held rather than expand toward possibilities. We had started on the journey of replacing on of our old apartment houses with a brand new, state of the art building. We had the idea, zoning, outline of a design, and the architect on standby. 

And then we backed down. We got cold feet and said no. 

Our reasons were sound. You might recognize them from your past as well. 

I had little experience. 
It would be hard.
What if it doesn’t work?
It was risky.

Therefore, we failed to see where the future was moving — what students wanted, what we should provide, and how we could give it to them. 

Therefore, I played small. I stuck with what I had and what I knew. I hadn’t learned my lesson. 

I had only piled up more regrets.

I’m an engineer.

That’s a description of both my vocation and personality. Knowing that now you know how to motivate me. 

For example, an engineer likes to make stuff. I like to make stuff. In fact, I’ve built my entire career and most hobbies around making stuff. My engineer friends are the same. 

Corporate executive, politician, or church leader — tell me a story that connects what I’m making to how it matters.

Of course, the fact that I’m an engineer is just the story I tell myself. It may be accurate on one plane, but it’s not exhaustive or immutable. But it starts with a story. 

All motivation starts with a story. Our personal stories connect us to our sense of being. Our shared stories connect us to each other and to our place in the world. 

We don’t all tell ourselves the same story, but at our core, each of us is motivated by a story. 

April fools.

To be perfectly clear, I’m all for four-day work weeks. Where do I sign up?

But let’s be real for a minute.

The moon landings, the space shuttle, and the mission to Mars don’t happen on four-day work weeks.

The Macintosh, the iPod, and the iPhone don’t make it to market with four-day work weeks.

Amazon, Google, and Facebook don’t launch on four-day work weeks.

By the way, these things don’t happen with five-day work weeks either. Five versus four is semantics when we’re talking about making great things. It’s arbitrary. 

You wanna make something great or be a part of something historical? There is no work-life balance. It’s work-life integration. 

Four-day work weeks are awesome. I’m all in. But let’s not kid ourselves about what can and should benefit from four-day work weeks. 

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.