it takes two to overheat

In her memoir Walk Through Walls, Marina Abramovich describes the time she spent living among the Pijantjatjara and Pintupi tribes in Australia (1). The summer heat in this area of the world home to Indigenous Australians is unimaginable to me. Temperatures can sometimes rise up to one hundred and thirty degrees. Her strategy for getting through such a day was very simple: don't move.

Boston's mercury does not quite reach those levels. Still, a ninety degree day is hot enough to leave careless Bostonians soaked in their own sweat. Avoiding perspiration altogether is next to impossible and just limiting it is (far, far) easier said than done.

One of the commonly seen strategies involves moving quickly from one air-conditioned location to another- the apartment to the subway train, the office to the sandwich shop, the gym to the car. This is not a bad strategy if the travel time is short. However, sometimes there is no choice but to walk outside for longer than two minutes. What to do now, hotshot?

My friend and I used to face this challenge each week. We would walk from his apartment toward his office and stop along the way for dinner. The time outside was around ten minutes, just long enough for the heat and humidity to activate our sweat glands.

We tried different ways to keep cool. Walking in the shade sometimes helped. At other times, we quickened our pace to 'beat the heat'. If the humidity was low or there was a breeze, sometimes these tricks worked. But not always.

One day, the temperature was almost ninety-five degrees. The humidity made the air so thick it felt like we were wading through a swimming pool. We had no hope.

Right as we left, I came up with a brilliant solution: walk slower. My friend was skeptical but we had nothing to lose. And so we moved at a grandmother's pace through the summer's hottest, stickiest day. When we finally arrived at dinner, we did so with clean shirts and some sense of amazement.

Most importantly, we learned something: 'moving the body generates body heat'. Who knew?

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. Wrote about them somewhat controversially, you mean?

Bored readers are free to lookup their own articles about Marina Abramovich and the racism controversy drafts of this book sparked.

the business bro presents: friendship at work

Good morning,

My apologies if you are reading this in the afternoon. I am simply assuming it is early in the morning because a Budding Business Bro always wakes up bright and early to tend to matters of business! And of course, this blog is targeted only at those serious about developing their business acumen.

In fact, my target audience is likely so absorbed in work that other parts of life are slipping. It's true, right? It's OK, I assure you, it happens from time to time to all of us BB's. Sometimes, work can fill in for those slipping (or entirely missing) parts of life.

One such area is friends. You might be so absorbed at work that you've forgotten you even have friends! Not to worry, though. If you remain mired permanently in this pattern, eventually you won't have those friends. But if you can make friends at work, on average not much will have changed.

The intersection of friendship and work is a tricky area to navigate for a manager. It is especially complicated if you are leaving colleagues behind in your ascent up the hierarchy. When I was making such a climb, I was advised by someone I respected to no longer 'be one of the peeps'. This was good advice (if not a little strangely worded) but I needed a little more input to know exactly where to draw the line.

Andy Grove's remarkable book, High Output Management, made the best insight into this topic I've heard so far. He drew the line at a very simple place: response to feedback. If someone you manage is not responsive to your feedback, you cannot maintain any semblance of a non-work relationship. The only thing that matters at this point is to build the professional relationship to a point where both manager and employee can participate equally in a two-way feedback conversation. All the other stuff has to wait.

If you are managing multiple people and you are friends with some but not others, keep an especially close eye on the above. Someone who is unresponsive to your feedback AND has reason to sense you have some sort of 'inner circle' will become more difficult to manage over time. This can be a positive thing if you are capable enough to identify it, however, because this person is also the first person who is pointing out your failure in the manager role. Respond to this signal by putting the other friendships on hold, building your professional rapport with everyone in the team, and re-establishing the communication channels needed to run a strong group.

Making friends at work is a good thing and often a marker of a good job. After all, we spend so much of our time at work. Jobs can allow for socialization, a sense of accomplishment, a chance to learn, and a place to belong. In the best environments, perhaps all of those are possible.

But for a manager, none of these things can come in ahead of what's best for the business.

Until next time,

The Business Bro

the legends i'm not working on

Genre: Legends/folk tales/fables (this is a genre(s), right?)

Title: The Hamburger Theory and Other Useless Tales

Estimated publication date: 2060

There have been a couple of instances on this blog where I've described the silly theories I've come up with over the years. I've settled on the label 'pre-theory' for these semi-insights into the human condition. Wouldn't it be great to assemble these all in one place for the people of the future? (No? Oh. Well...)

The catch for this collection will remind longtime readers of the Lost In Translation bracket, the 'Make America Debate Again' series, or the 'Hitting the Pods Button' post. Instead of worrying about hammering out all my comments in a straight-ahead fashion, I'll make my point using a (sort of) clever gimmick. For the most part, the theories I'll introduce in this hypothetical book would use some sort of short story constructed as a legend or fable to express the idea.

Full chapters for this book are probably close to done. The problem is the volume. I'm sure I'll cook up a few more useless theories over the next few weeks/months/years/decades and, eventually, have enough to form into a coherent collection.

leftovers #2: the final exam series

Reader, you'll have to take my word that I did try to paraphrase the scenario introducing this series strictly from memory. I hope you'll give me the benefit of the doubt.

But of course, the Good Old Interwebs gives me the option to fact-check. So, here is what I suspect is the exact scenario as written in the book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs:

Someone builds and optical portal that allows you to see a vision of your own life in the future (it's essentially a crystal ball that shows a randomly selected image of what your life will be like in twenty years). You can only see into this portal for thirty seconds. When you finally peer into the crystal, you see yourself in a living room, two decades older than you are today. You are watching a Canadian football game, and you are extremely happy. You are wearing a CFL jersey. Your chair is surrounded by books and magazines that promote the Canadian Football League, and there are CFL pennants covering your walls. You are alone in the room, but you are gleefully muttering about historical moments in Canadian football history. It becomes clear that—for some unknown reason—you have become obsessed with Canadian football. And this future is static and absolute; no matter what you do, this future will happen. The optical portal is never wrong. This destiny cannot be changed.

The next day, you are flipping through television channels and randomly come across a pre-season CFL game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Knowing your inevitable future, do you now watch it?

I guess my version of it has a couple of minor differences, including a) world club soccer and b) I own jerseys but don't wear them and obviously c) I gleefully write blog posts about historic moments from the sport. Everything else is more or less factually correct.

Are there other hypotheticals from the book that apply to my current life? No. However, there were a few pretty good ones. Here is a selection of my favorite opening sentences from a handful of these hypotheticals:

You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago.

For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level.

Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster.

For whatever the reason, two unauthorized movies are made about your life.

Every person you have ever slept with is invited to a banquet where you are the guest of honor.

Your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room.

A novel titled Interior Mirror is released to mammoth commercial success (despite middling reviews).

reading review: everyday zen

Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck (August 2017)

Here’s a rather pointless analogy to summarize the book. Let’s say you sit on a merry-go-round or, if you are certain type of person, a carousel. The music starts and you go round and round. At first, it is fun, even merry, and you enjoy the sights and sounds of the ride. Eventually, though, you get a bit antsy. You start to think why am I here? or is this all there is? or the plastic seat is hurting my butt.

And so you look ahead and you decide, hey, I want to catch the horse in front of me! That would be better, that would be progress, and so you focus intently. At first, you rise above the target and you think, well, actually, I’m above it, so who cares if I catch it? And you think you’ve let go, but suddenly the horse is above you, and you are annoyed, but before you can decide what to do next, you are above it again, and it is unclear if you are winning or losing or falling back or catching up and you just focus on the target in front, you block it all out, and you notice nothing and think of nothing except catching the horse in front. Pretty soon, a police officer is tapping you on the shoulder and asking you why a grown adult like you is keeping all these nice little children waiting in line (1).

I concocted this ridiculous story I bring up this insightful analogy because it relates to an important realization I had about Everyday Zen. Throughout, Beck brings up various goals, targets, or concepts for the reader’s brief consideration before reminding us – it isn’t about a goal, target, or concept.

For her, the spirit of Zen is awakening to the immediate moment with all our senses attuned to the surrounding world. It is, in short, the heightening of self-awareness. It shares an ethos with therapy in how it establishes an individual’s capacity for self-observation. People attuned to their own self-imposed boundaries learn to be aware of them and find ways to step over the lines.

Once people act based on their understanding of self, the internal problems tend to go away. Outside observers may not ‘get it’ but for the individual there are no anxieties, concerns, or issues.

This spirit is not to be confused with exchanging sources of authority. People who choose to 'become their own boss' are still submitting to perhaps the most meaningless authority - themselves! The only authority is life, reader. This means being grounded in actions based on reality rather than living passively based on outdated belief systems.

One up: Beck invokes the concept of absence to make certain points. Above, I highlighted a thought about how the approach to authority is not a question of finding the right person but rather the task of discarding the 'right person' concept altogether.

Enlightenment is another example. The enlightened individual has not reached a goal or a target but rather learned to leave behind the goals and targets a person can become concerned with over time.

I thought the idea was best exemplified in her comments about practice. Good practice is not about doing this or doing that in some set order. Rather, it is about knowing what practice is not and going from there.

A good sign that someone does not understand practice is when he or she says I have no time to practice. Hmmm…

If practice becomes life, busyness is practice. I don’t do anything resembling the Zen practice of sitting but I do stop at red lights and I never run for the subway. I would get where I'm going a little earlier, for sure, but...what would be the point? An athlete who eats a salad instead of a cheeseburger is practicing, a doctor who stays up all night watching TV is not. If a world leader flies to a global warming conference in a private jet, is this practice?

Since it is possible to practice all the time, it is not possible to have no time for practice.

One down: This book works because it is authentic and honest about what the author believes in. But for all the high-minded talk about discarding belief systems, the book remains a description of a belief system. This belief system is called Zen practice.

I suppose this is an inevitable issue with a certain type of book project.

Just saying: The observation that saying I will communicate better to improve the relationship really means I will communicate better so you see what I want made me laugh out loud.

Don’t worry about tangentially related things like communication, folks - just focus on improving the relationship.

Just saying, part two: I also had a laugh when Beck pointed out how academics save the world every day by writing books (and every night at dinner talking about it).

Just saying, part three:  I joked recently at my friend’s wedding that there are two ways to deal with midday fatigue. One approach is to drink a cup of coffee and hope to perk up. The other way is to start drinking alcohol and hope to forget the fatigue…

This book is easy to read in so many ways. It is relatively short, well-written, and uses simple, clear language. As a result, I suspect it understates the challenge of living up to its principles. Like in my joke above, it is easy to simply say ah, kid, have a beer and forget your wants and desires… without acknowledging how doing this in the wrong way will bring outright harm to the body.

So, reader, approach the concepts in this book with respect. It essentially demands we reverse the programming we've relied on since birth, the belief that the only way to meet our needs is to bring the loudest cry out of our terrified bodies until it gets someone's attention. It is indeed no mystery how the fears, anxieties, and concerns that run amok in the unsettled mind are so difficult to ignore!

It is a big task to start the journey away from the self-centered approach that comes so naturally in response to life's difficulties. But a self-centered life is a disconnected one. The people who identify less and less with themselves find it easier to include more into their lives. They are able to support others because they give without demanding a return. The form of loneliness this life implies is overcome only by devoting everything to everyone. As cooks everywhere understand, preparing food for others is the best way to prevent their own starvation.

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. So, is this analogy really the entire book?

It can be, if you want, but I’m open to your protest, reader. It is a silly story, isn’t it, and how could such a story represent what I considered a pretty good book?

the bb book club: the hard thing about hard things, part two

One thing I did not get into in my initial review for The Hard Thing About Hard Things were the general leadership concepts scattered throughout the book. I’ve organized a few of them for today because I think these ideas are important for leaders at any level of an organization to consider.

Basic leadership concepts

The most important task for any leader is to make the best possible decision in a given situation. It does not matter if there are no obviously good moves to choose from. Most people can choose from among a set of good options and making these types of decisions does not require leadership. Leaders take responsibility for decision making when there are no good options available.

Since decisions must often be made before all the needed information can be gathered, a strong leader gathers information all the time. This increases the chances of a leader having all the needed information on-hand when the moment to make a decision becomes apparent.

A skilled leader is a great time manager because the only way to gather information is to spend time gathering information. Having as much time available as possible is the only way to maximize the amount of information gathered. If a leader’s time is disorganized, there will not be enough time left in the day to gather information for the benefit of future decisions. Leaders who rise through an organization often do so because of this one skill. Instead of putting out fires all day, these leaders have enough time to anticipate problems and address threats before they manifest as crises.

An employee is someone who gathers information through manuals, official communications, and formal direction. A leader gathers information through observation, casual conversation, and informal direction. Leaders assemble the information they have gathered informally into resources such as FAQs, status reports, and white papers. Leaders take information gathered informally and document it for employees to leverage later.

Leaders clarify ‘why’ instead of over-defining ‘what’. They make others understand ‘why’ because they recognize that the employees who understand ‘why’ resist the temptation of determining their own sets of priorities. A person who cannot articulate ‘why’ is not ready to lead effectively.

Leaders are responsible for fitting a genius into the team. They must identify the right strengths for a role and work with the new hire on shoring up weaknesses. If someone fits into the team but lacks the required strengths for the role, the leader must be the one who helps the person move on to the appropriate team.

-The Business Bro

the peanut m&m job interview strategy

On the second day of my freshman orientation hiking trip, we new students were tricked by our group leaders. After a short hike and some petty excuse making, we finally got settled for our first meal of the day. To tide everyone over until lunch was ready, a giant bag of peanut M&M’s was passed around.

'Take as many as you like, we have plenty,' we were told. I grabbed exactly eighteen.

The catch was revealed moments later. This was not an appetizer but rather another ice-breaking activity. For each M&M, we were supposed to tell one fun fact about ourselves. Everyone had a nice giggle as I announced my total.

I took a minute to decide what to do. I’d barely spoken on the trip so far. I could say I liked M&M's but even this obvious fact seemed too mundane to share as 'fun'. And seventeen more after that! I was shy and I was stuck.

Finally, it came to me: I was eighteen and I had to say eighteen things. If I told one story from each year of my life, I would be all set. I cleared my throat and got started...

‘When I was one, my grandmother tied a weight around my neck…’

‘When I was five, I broke my arm before gymnastics practice…’

‘When I was eleven, we used to play off-the-wall in the boys bathroom with a bouncy ball…’

'When I was seventeen, I was at the center of a minor uproar involving the junior math award...'

All things considered, my idea went over very well. I don’t keep in touch with anyone from the trip anymore so I can’t say for sure if this was a memorable moment for my classmates. Probably, I would bring it up and they would vaguely recall 'something along those lines'. Then, we would talk about (their) kids or (their) jobs or whatever else was needed to properly get caught up.

But after all these years, I still remember it. It was a good lesson on how to break up a messy problem into a set of smaller but coherent chunks.

A few months ago, I recognized how unsure I was about the best way to prepare for job interviews. Broadly speaking, I did not want to spend too much time preparing. A job requiring I know every detail of a company’s history or a boss demanding perfect polish for each minute I was onsite was very likely to be a poor fit with my skills. But I couldn't just roll out of bed and start talking, either. I felt the need to do some kind of preparation.

Eventually, I remembered this incident from ten years ago. I decided to try writing down a story for each line on the job description. Surely, citing past examples of what the hiring team sought would only help my candidacy. And by limiting myself to a predetermined set of responses, I protected myself against the temptation of going ‘off-script’ into areas where the relationship between my skills and the job’s needs was not so obvious.

So far, the results have been mixed: I have not yet seen a job offer thanks to this technique yet I’ve felt very good about my recent interview performances. I think I’m on to something here, though, and looking forward to refining the approach over the duration of this job search.

when the song is over, stop playing

Right around this time last year, I went to see Slow Club perform at The Great Scott in Allston (1). In preparation for the show, I researched the band a little bit online and read a few web features about the duo from Sheffield, England.

In one of the interviews, Charles or Rebecca (can't remember who) gave an interesting response to a question about what they had learned over the course of their career. The gist of the remark was how in earlier times the songwriter was a little too keen to write a third verse. In some cases, just two verses would have done fine.

A similar idea came up on a trip I made earlier this year to NYC. We went to see an improv show a friend was performing in. After the show, we asked him about the experience. In his answer, he commented on the challenge of knowing when the skit was over.

Though the two remarks are not exactly related, they do share an underlying wisdom about endings. Endings are tough, a lesson I learn anew every time I log on to write these posts.

What adds to the challenge of ending a piece properly is how life barely prepares me to do it. In hindsight, I see how almost all things end when they start going badly. Ending a song, skit, or a piece of writing at the moment it turns south would do no good. By then, it is too late.

I recently came across a good rule of thumb for endings. In a short essay about writing, Paul Graham suggests 'when an ending appears, grab it'. It lacks the pageantry of 'THE END', I suppose, but if everything critical has already been said, there's not much need to carry on.

THE END.

Footnotes / imagined complaints

0. Slow Club doesn't even know what Thanksgiving is...

Happy Thanksgiving, readers.

If you find yourself considered a third helping later...please refer to the advice above from Slow Club.

1. Allston, Texas?

Several years ago, I went to a party in South Boston with a friend visiting from Austin, Texas. He was talking to someone there when he heard someone say they lived in Allston.

He turned and said 'Austin? Oh yeah, I'm from Texas, too.'

'No- Allston. Like, next to Brighton.'

'Oh.'

My friend turned back to me.

'I thought she was talking about someplace cool.'

if you are still hungry for content after this post, go read the menus at mcdonalds

As a sports fan, I'm always coming across transformation stories. One I like in particular is about Novak Djokovic's diet.

Though always among the top players in tennis, in 2010 Djokovic was rarely considered a serious threat for the top spot in the world rankings. This changed when he discovered he was gluten-intolerant. He adjusted his diet according to his needs and almost immediately ascended to #1. He has been the sport's most consistent top player since.

How determined was Djokovic? Not even his family history could hold the man back- Djokovic's parents owned a pizza parlor! The story is used as an example of doing everything it takes to win. I agree with this interpretation to an extent.

But another part of me considers the story depressing (1). Djokovic's job is to think about optimizing tennis performance. This is the only thing he is paid to do! If he took so long to realize how a change in diet would impact his results, what chance do the rest of us working stiffs, sad-sack bloggers, and weekend warriors have? How will I ever understand my own assumptions, challenge my limitations, and find new ways to live up to my potential?

At first glance, I suspect the answer is close to zero.

I'm so pessimistic partly because I recognize how well trained I am to accept everything without question. I reached this conclusion because I could only think back to a small handful of examples from my own education where I made something resembling a Djokovic-style assault on a long-held assumption.

Perhaps the best example comes from a seventh-grade home economics class (2). In a lesson about formal dinner behavior, the teacher stressed the importance of learning to think differently about these meals.

Instead of looking at all the food to eat, focus more on manners and etiquette...

It's not about the food, it's about the host...

The forks go in order from left to right by course...

Don't lick the plate...

I woke up in time to hear the key line. This quote hammered the lesson home for us snot-nosed youngsters and has stayed with me for nearly two decades.

'If you are still hungry, you can always stop at McDonald's on the way home.'

If you are still hungry...McDonald's...what? This was mind blowing stuff for me at the time.

The line represented a number of firsts, including (a) the first time a teacher suggested going to eat fast food was the right idea and (b) the first time I learned people stop eating before being full and (c) the first time I learned I might one day have enough money to afford McDonald's as some sort of extra meal, provided (d) I grew up to become an adult who would consider (b).

But the big one here is (e) this being the first instance I thought about eating in a context outside of a meal or a snack. What category does devouring a twenty piece Chicken McNuggets while wearing a bow tie fall into? Given my unusual eating schedule today, this seems a fairly ridiculous revelation. I guess all things start somewhere.

Until this particular home-ec lesson, I never thought about how I ate. I just ate. How else would I eat? Food to hand, hand to mouth, chew, repeat.

Back then, any deviation from my expectations was an intellectually stimulating event. When I found out junior high lunch started at 10:20am, I was stunned. Wasn't lunch a word for eating at noon? And for a long time, I counted my friends who never ate breakfast among the biggest weirdos I knew (3).

Like most things I thought about without actually thinking about, I think differently about things now. I can't imagine there is any biological benefit to eating meals called breakfast, lunch, or dinner at specific times of the day. When I no longer saw any reason to continue observing this unexplained custom, I stopped (4).

I assume this meal schedule exists entirely for social reasons (though sometimes it is also described as 'healthy'). The idea gets reinforced very early on, especially for kids whose parents have some firm beliefs of their own (5). It's not really surprising to see kids carry the idea into adulthood and use it to structure their own meal schedules. And since it's not obviously harmful to eat three square meals a day, I suppose it's not a huge issue if this pattern continues on in the future.

What I do worry about is how casually kids are trained to accept assumptions. It is possible a given child will perform better on a different meal schedule. This would not be the first time different methods worked for different people. Are all babies fed three times a day? But if the idea of three meals a day is ingrained into the mind at an early age, how will a kid ever figure it out? My bet is until kids learn to challenge assumptions, they probably won't figure it out.

It raises the question of how to best teach people to challenge assumptions. The best way might be to simply wait it out until adulthood and make each person responsible for learning it on his or her own. I'm inclined to suggest this is the status quo and I don't think it's necessarily a bad approach. As I pointed out earlier, Djokovic managed to do it in his early twenties. And he was already in the top five of perhaps the most competitive profession in the world! My own process of learning this skill over the past few years has been enriching (though without the literally enriching results enjoyed by Mr. Djokovic).

But I also look back and recognize the 'late high school to early adulthood' period as the least creative period of my life. A lot of mistakes I made during this time were based on assumptions I did not care to challenge (or even recognize). I got lucky because none of my mistakes were irreversible. But just because it worked out doesn't mean it was the best way to do it.

I'm not sure what comes first, creativity or challenging assumptions. But it does seem like, in hindsight, one goes with the other. It makes sense to me because the underlying ethos of each is to ask 'why not?'

Why not write a software allowing regular drivers to give rides to strangers?

Why not eat one meal a day at 4pm?

Why not write blog posts about Hubway?

In a way, creativity is merely a process of challenging assumptions and challenging assumptions effectively is impossible without creativity. For me, learning how to program computers on the job brought out my creativity in ways which helped me look differently at the outside world. And as I started to see things differently, my ability to envision new ways of manipulating databases through code developed rapidly. My experience suggests one approach for teaching people to question assumptions is to find ways to cultivate their creative instincts.

As I understand the current education system, things are not very well placed to cultivate creativity in students. I mentioned earlier my struggle to come up with examples of being taught to challenge assumptions (6). I draw a similar blank when I think about the ways my teachers developed or encouraged my creativity. I remember solving problems instead of defining them. I learned how instead of understanding why. These exercises left me well prepared for jobs with organizations structured like schools (or just more school, had I preferred it).

Learning these skills were infinitely valuable. Students coming out of school equipped as I was might find their twenties an interesting time to learn more about the world while finding ways to deeply consider some of what they accepted for two decades. But why wait until age twenty-two? Why wait so long?

As Fallen Leaves suggests, when a big question lacks an obvious answer, better education is often the only solution. If the goal is to teach students to challenge assumptions and this skill works in tandem with creative instincts, perhaps better education means more emphasis on creative pursuits. Unfortunately, the anecdotal evidence I see suggests otherwise. Students are taking fewer art, music, or physical education classes to better allocate their time on honing the skills valued by standardized testing or college admissions boards. It's easy to understand the focus on 'textbook subjects' but I worry about students being unprepared for a world yet to be immortalized in any textbook: tomorrow's.

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. When I say 'another part of me'...

...I mean the part of me that writes this blog.

2. I usually tell people I started economics in senior year of high school...

In hindsight, I suppose home economics was my first exposure to economics of any kind. I do not think I learned much, though, to help me in my later undergraduate years.

3. Most of my friends were weirdos...

...the rest slept until noon.

4. This became a footnote after I applied my 'who could possibly care about this' test...

Initially, I ate more often under the impression smaller meals eaten more frequently helped my metabolism. These days, I eat less often but perhaps consume more food per meal.

In terms of the societal level comment, I should point out how one of the better places we ate at while my mom was in hospice was called '3 Squares'. Surely, this name was a reference to the general concept of three square meals a day (and suggested their commitment to serving each).

5. My original plan was to link to a clip!

Unfortunately, no such clip could be found. Here's the transcript, I guess. It will have to do.

6. It was fun that he swore in class, though...

The second-place finisher in the 'how I was taught to challenge assumptions' contest comes from a high school history class. I recall one day when the topic of assumptions came up. The teacher leaned forward, slightly, with restrained excitement as he held up his index finger.

"Do you know what happens when you assume?" he asked.

No one responded.

"You make an ass of you and me," he said.

I think our education system can do better.

the essay collection i'm not working on

Genre: Essay collection (?)

Title: No working title

Estimated publication date: 2035 (following my mid-life crisis)

This one is pretty basic. First, I'll go through my posts here and pick out the ones people liked. Next, I'll start formatting until I fill up a couple hundred pages or so of material. I could probably do this tomorrow if I felt like it (editor's note: luckily for us all, Tim does not feel like it...)

The only problem with the above plan is my lack of interest in re-reading my own crap. I'm assuming this means no one will wish to pay for the privilege, either.

I'll revisit this project when I start vainly scrolling back through my TOA archives. Might make a reasonable activity during my mid-life crisis, you know?

leftovers: doing the opposite

Both of my examples look pretty good. I think I know which one looks like something I might write and which one I would like to write more of, though.

There is a reason why fortune cookies have one sentence instead of one paragraph.

reading review: impro

Impro by Keith Johnstone (September 2017)

Finally! After years of failed attempts to read this book – including last summer's especially embarrassing effort when I stopped reading like a petulant little child after losing my note card on the DC metro - this past September I checked out Impro, started reading, and got all the way to the end without allowing anything to unnecessarily curb my progression. Well done to me!

The book can be broken up into three parts. The first section was Johnstone’s personal reflection on the purpose of teaching and the challenges he overcame to develop this understanding. The second was a direct application of these ideas to his work as an improv teacher. A lot of what I'll write about Impro comes from these two sections (I will briefly address the third and final section a little later on).

I found the first section more interesting for its general insights and the second more directly applicable to some of the problems I’m currently interested in. One example of the latter grew out of his comments into status signaling. In improv, the way actors juggle status relationships among themselves, demonstrate how these dynamics are changing throughout a scene, and find ways to use the various status relationship to surprise the audience are all critical ingredients in determining the success of a given performance. (1)

In everyday life, these little status interactions are often referred to as trying to ‘gain the upper hand’ or ‘playing one-up’. There are many subtle ways to accomplish this. A common technique is to interact with the environment. A person who picks up the ringing phone or answers the door shows a command of the space befitting of high-status while the guest who asks permission to do basic actions like sit down, use the restroom, or have a glass of water is playing low-status. It is no wonder how a house guest opening the refrigerator without warning annoys certain hosts!

One trick I pulled from Johnstone’s thoughts into status signaling deals with how people link head movement with authority. The main insight was how holding the head completely still is a simple but highly effective technique for conveying high status. (Reader, my over-inflated head has not moved since I read Impro…)

The idea becomes obvious to me if I watch TV. The polished newscasters talk as if their heads are held in place by an unseen vice while those just starting in their careers bounce their heads around the screen like teenagers listening to the newest pop single.

But it doesn’t necessarily follow that everyone on TV should sit stock-still. I’m reminded here of how Frank Caliendo used to impersonate Jay Leno – the main trick was to keep moving his head every which way throughout the impersonation. Without being very familiar with Leno’s work, I’m guessing his comedy was based on playing ‘low status’ with his audience or the guests on his late night show. I would also not be surprised if I saw Rodney Dangerfield moving his around quite a bit while he delivered his famously self-deprecating performances. (2)

One up: There were some very clever insights into the art of storytelling. According to Johnstone, a good story should describe a routine interrupted. This logic suggests a common problem with bad stories is focusing too much on the routine. If a story needs improvement, forget about making the routine more interesting and instead consider ways to interrupt the routine already described (or implied) by the story.

A good story also reincorporates elements from the past. In a way, a storyteller is like the passenger facing backward in a moving train. Though things continue to move forward, the storyteller has no sense of what is coming up – the only things visible are what’s already passed. When the story gets stuck, the approach should be to look once more at what’s happened rather than groping aimlessly for what might come up around the bend. (3)

One down: Johnstone demystifies a couple of famous figures in the process of writing this book. Regarding Edison, he describes how the inventor found a solvent for rubber by putting it into every solution he could think of. Clever, but how many inventors wasted their considerable talents mimicking this ‘brute force’ approach? (4)

Pavlov also took a hit in my book (or blog, I guess, which is what this is) when Johnstone points out how the famed scientist did not humanely train every dog he took charge of in his famous ‘bell-and-salivate’ experiment. Some dogs, Johnstone mentions, were first castrated then starved for three weeks before becoming responsive to the bell.

I’ll be right back – I’m off to contact my local animal rights activist.

Just saying: OK- I’m back!

The final section of the book – the one I did not do much with - dealt with mask work. This topic did not resonate with me because it was so specific to a certain type of performance. To summarize the section quickly, I think what Johnstone does is explain the phenomenon I suspect many have experienced where the mere act of wearing a costume changes behavior.

I’m sure those interested in the mask topic will draw a lot from Johnstone’s insights, however, because I assume he covers the mask topic with the same depth and insight he demonstrated in the two sections I know more about.

Just saying, part two: I liked the thought about why people enjoy going to see ‘a view’, especially if it is a view unblocked for long distances (like the ocean or the mountains). For Johnstone, such an urge was perhaps a way people dealt with a feeling of overcrowding.

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. Not that I know anything about improv but here goes anyway…

As an example, consider a scene where a chauffeur is driving a passenger to a prestigious conference. The chauffeur here is by default in a low status position while his passenger is in a high status. Merely establishing this relationship makes the scene realistic. But if this is all the performance accomplishes, the audience will be left wanting.

The scene might become more interesting for the audience if the chauffeur finds a way to elevate his status. This could be done by giving expert advice to the passenger or revealing that he has been ‘higher status’ all along. Perhaps the chauffeur is driving as a side job to alleviate the boredom of being a world-class expert in the subject of the upcoming conference. The key here becomes how the passenger reacts to the shift in the status change. If the actor responds and plays off the new dynamic, the audience will likely find the scene more interesting than if there is resistance to the status shift.

What might happen if the actors retain the original status structure? The scene is likely headed nowhere interesting. At this point, the chauffeur could pick up a second passenger. Perhaps this new person is the first passenger’s boss. The resulting demand on the first passenger to alternately play low status with the boss and high status with the chauffeur would then create added opportunities to exploit the status dynamic in the scene.

2. Wow, what amazing predictions!

I mean, look, I insist I did make these predictions before watching the linked video clips. But I'll leave it open whether I would have left the predictions in if I didn't find the corroborating video evidence...

On the topic of high status, I found an additional scene to further illustrate the dynamic. In this clip,  Leno pops in on Jimmy Fallon's show and delivers a few jokes in a guest monologue. Fallon returns right at the end (around the four minute mark) and adds a couple jokes of his own. When Fallon returns, you can see him use some of the high-status markers while Leno uses low-status tactics to confirm his return to a supporting role.

3. Footnote #1, revisited

The interrupted routine aspect might come into play in the example from the above footnote if the chauffeur took a wrong turn or picked up an unexpected passenger. (I think this is a fairly common type of scene that anyone familiar with improv performances will recognize.)

The reincorporation of past elements is a trickier skill. If the chauffeur in the above example picks up a new passenger, perhaps the actor will make reference to the conversation which took place before the new passenger entered the vehicle. If this reference places the first passenger in an uncomfortable position with the new passenger, perhaps the scene is going somewhere. And if the reference interrupts a regular routine of some kind or disrupts the status balance between the two passengers, well, then at the very least we’ve incorporated all the tricks I’ve talked about today, reader, and we all know how important that is...

4. Let’s work on our null hypotheses a little bit first…

Edison’s solvent trick reminds me of a comment about data science I heard while at dinner recently with a couple of software engineers – the problem with data scientists is many of them think if they make the haystack large enough, there will eventually HAVE to be a needle...

Hmmm...

Reader, if you think today is the last time I’ll make some reference to this use of the ‘needle in a haystack’ concept, well, I hope you are enjoying your first day on my blog! Do kindly subscribe to the emails, please, if you’ve enjoyed your maiden voyage on TOA.

i read dubliners so you don't have to

Dubliners by James Joyce (July 2017)

Joyce's collection describes Dublin's middle class life at the turn of the 20th century (1). Over fifteen stories, he observes and describes the many ways people find to live and die in this town.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I opened this book. Perhaps it was something less accessible and, in some way, more Irish. But I was happy with what the collection turned out to be.

I got the sense Joyce carefully balanced the understanding and empathy he felt for his characters with his general disgust for how the environment encouraged them to behave. After I finished reading, I was not surprised to learn Joyce left Dublin soon after this collection was completed. Though Dubliners was written over a century ago, I think many will find themselves familiar with the struggle to find their own place within this eternal balancing act.

Of the fifteen stories, I enjoyed 'Araby' and 'A Mother' enough to read both an extra time. I also did the same for 'A Painful Case', a type of story I almost always enjoy: a protagonist, accustomed to always looking outward, has an epiphany when taking a rare moment to look within.

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. Or apparently, anyway.

Sometimes, we readers just have to take these types of remarks for granted. Who knows what life in Dublin was like in 1905? Not me. But apparently Joyce captured it perfectly, or so everyone says, and thus I have no choice but to go with it.

the business bro presents: use verbs, ignore nouns

The Gifts of Imperfection invoked a simple but critical idea I recalled from Daring Greatly: guilt is about what you did, shame is about who you are. I remember taking this idea and running with it to form my own philosophy about giving and responding to feedback: use verbs, ignore nouns.

Someone calls you a jerk? Tell them to buzz off- you don't have time for fake news. (1)

The same person says you were being a jerk? Better straighten up and listen, kid, because most people are right when they say something like this.

Nouns and verbs come in handy for team building concepts as well. A team member who thinks in nouns is dangerous. These people will fit into the group at all costs, including sacrificing their originality. When originality leaves the building, creativity is calling a cab. (Cabs are old-school Ubers, kids.)

Encourage team members to think in verbs instead. Verbs are action-oriented and encourage growth without forcing conformity or posturing. If someone verb-oriented screws up, it won’t happen again because actions are correctible. Get a noun-oriented person to make a mistake and it confirms their identify as a bad employee.

A leader must forget blame or anger. Instead, be kinder and firmer. Create accountability by explaining what will happen as a result of unacceptable behavior and make sure to follow through on your word. A work environment of healthy compassion means people accept others for who they are while simultaneously holding each other accountable for what they do.

Until next time,

The Business Bro

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. But what if the other person is right, jerk?

Well, you should have even less time for old news.

urusai!

Last week, I posted a story about getting a coffee maker from my mom when I moved out. In this account, I quoted her saying 'Anything. Maybe a coffee maker?'

Ha.

I don't remember what she (or I) said seven years ago. It was just a guess, and an honest one, but it also fit better than some other options.

"Urusai!" was one such choice. "Urusai!" is one of the better Japanese expressions.

In theory, it means 'you are being loud'.

In practice, it means 'shut up'.

In translation (which I see as the unique blend of practice and theory) 'urusai' kind of means 'since your choice to speak is causing you to be too loud, perhaps you should consider being less loud, or even quiet, a goal most sensibly and directly achieved by shutting up. So, do shut up.'

Footnotes / imagined complaints

0. Editor's note...

We at TOA look forward to the (calm) rebuttals from our Japanese-speaking reader(s) regarding today's translation lesson.

when the journey is the destination

The most unexpected observation I've made while working with dementia patients is the way some of them repeat things they've said in the past. I'm not talking about just the words or the ideas here. When I hear something for a second, third, or twenty-seventh time, everything about it is the same: the word choice, the pauses between the words, the body movements. It's like hitting 'rewind' on a video and watching the exact same thing happen again.

When I started working with these patients, my understanding of the memory loss caused by dementia resembled how I understood the memory loss experienced by a computer. Once gone, it never comes back.

But the reality of the cases I've seen is a little different. It's more like encountering an unexpected roadblock along a familiar route: the destination is still there but the obvious route is impassable. Unlike with a computer, humans find many ways to arrive at the same place.

For us hospice volunteers, the lack of a past history with the patient turns these moments into opportunity. If someone repeats back a story or even just a sentence in the exact way it was done a week ago, I understand I've discovered a new route to access an old memory.

But for family and friends of the ill, these moments are yet another difficult reminder in a long, steady trajectory of loss. For them, the journey means just as much as arriving at the destination. A familiar pathway gone is one never to be shared again.

It pains me to have so little to offer a friend or family member in this situation. Since everyone is different to begin with, there are no sure patterns the disease follows and no real methods to help the situation. From my experience, the only suggestion I have is to try as many ways as possible to meet someone where they are. Try to create some familiarity by wearing familiar clothes, sharing past meals, or going to favorite places. Music is often cited as a way to help dementia patients return to a previous time while others use techniques perfected by improv comics to communicate with their loved ones. These techniques are all effective to varying degrees but, again, no single method guarantees anything.

It's soul-crushing work at times to keep trying what is not sure to work. And yet when someone is lost, the only way to help is to find out where they are and go out to meet them. The challenge is significant because the illness brings relentless darkness. But from what I've seen in my short time as a volunteer, the family and friends who do what they can to join their loved one in a confusing world find ways to make those last days a meaningful and sacred time.

the sports/history book i'm not working on

Genre: Sports/history

Title: The Shrinking Game

Estimated publication date: 2090 (perhaps in collaboration with any aspiring writers who are visiting my deathbed at the time)

This would be a book-length version of the (nearly book-length) post I'm working on, 'The Future of Popular Sports'. The general idea is how the history of rule changes in sports is a continuous trend favoring players of normal build. These changes usually emphasize the sport's specific skills or reduce the advantage of athleticism. Over time, the new rules allow players of relatively modest size, speed, and quickness to compete at an elite level.

Basketball provides many good examples. Its host of recent rule changes have made it harder for the tallest players to simply stand under the basket and wait. There are also good examples from soccer and helmet football which have reduced the advantages once enjoyed by physically imposing players. Every suspension for doping is a battle waged in the name of preserving the mean, median, and mode's prospects for sports stardom.

My book would then look at the current sports landscape, make some observations, and conclude with a few educated guesses about the sports which will become popular in the future.

The only obstacle to writing this book is a major one: I'm just not into sports enough. Putting a year or so of my life into a sports book project seems like a bit of a stretch given my current level of interest.

leftovers #1: the final exam series

Watching Rafa Benitez in my formative years as a Liverpool fan was a huge stroke of luck. It was a crash-course in strategy, really, and each week was a new lesson in how to win (or draw) soccer matches. Perhaps more importantly, I learned the relevance of those draws, a valuable understanding for someone accustomed to the win-at-all-costs mentality demonstrated by the tie-breaking structures in American sports.

As I broadened my understanding of how tactics worked, I quickly lost interest in the soap-opera style stories generated by the mainstream (UK) media. The mechanics of the games themselves were far more captivating than the wild (and often embellished, sometimes invented) stories about manager's comments, post-match handshakes, and rumors regarding upcoming transfers.

the bb book club: the hard thing about hard things

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz (August 2017)

Good morning,

As I promised on Thursday, here is the first of my multi-part review for The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

We'll jump right into things today with my thoughts on some of Horowitz's insights into higher-level ideas about leading an organization.

-The Business Bro

What is the CEO’s role?

The CEO’s main function is to define how the work will get done. In a small organization, a CEO can do this by talking to the right people. As the organization grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to communicate directly with everyone. At some point, the CEO must formalize the communication architecture to ensure everyone understands how the work will get done.

Strong companies use this architecture to share information about problems. The CEO must exemplify this ethos through daily action. One way is to give consistent feedback. Regular feedback reinforces the importance of identifying rather than hiding problems.

Good feedback means challenging the person with the most knowledge to clarify an evaluation. A CEO who gives feedback without remaining open to admitting error will shut down discussions and encourage employees to hide problems. A CEO who does not give regular feedback risks having feedback taken personally.

A CEO who does not keep his or her word will slowly lose the organization’s trust. The same will result if important information is withheld, distorted, or leaked to the organization. An executive who loses the trust of the organization is rarely able to win it back.

Organizational design

The purpose of organizational design is to define how the CEO will communicate to the company how the work will get done. If designed successfully, the company will be an easy place for individuals to get their job done while also allowing management to quickly and efficiently share information pertinent to how the work will get done.

Designing an organization requires first determining who must know what. This is easy to derive if decision-making responsibilities are strictly defined. Next, prioritize the most important decisions by optimizing the needed communication paths and deciding who will run any groups involved in these decisions. Finally, identify any communication paths left unaccounted for and plan for ways to resolve the issues these will create.

Whenever any new work starts taking place, allow the people doing the work ad-hoc to eventually formalize the process. A good time for this is whenever there are clear problems with the work yet there is no sign of a looming crisis.

As an organization evolves, the organizational design must adapt with it. Simply evaluate the current design using the above criteria. If people understand their roles and expect good things to come for themselves and the company whenever they execute well, the organizational design is serving the present need. If there are unseen boundaries or obstacles that break process and lead to infighting, the organizational design is failing. Managers should use individual meetings with their teams to gather information about the strength of the organizational design and act quickly if they sense things slipping.

If the organizational design is broken, good CEOs ask themselves difficult questions and always opt for the hardest answers. If the choice comes down to courage or comfort, they choose the former. They reward performance over giving flat bonuses, for example, or cut projects which were kept in place only for consistency's sake. They ensure behavior that advances the business is rewarded and eliminate the incentives encouraging anything else. If there are issues with promotions or off-cycle raises, good CEOs establish a formal performance and compensation review process because they understand the importance of saying ‘NO’ to the squeaky wheels in the organization.

Human resources

Being a strong company is trivial when things are going well. However, it is perhaps the only relevant consideration when things go wrong. HR plays a vital role in ensuring companies remain strong by focusing on the process, being a diplomat among department leaders, and helping the management team improve. If quality slips, HR should be the first to notice.

A good HR team constantly evaluates the company. Here are some sample questions to use in the evaluation process:

-Are the requirements to fill all open positions well understood?

-Do interviewers prepare for every interview? Do they sell the company to candidates?

-Do interviewers arrive on time? Do they follow up once a decision is made?

-Does the company compete for talent?

-Do the benefits match up for the needs of the company's demographics?

-How long does a new hire take to get fully 'up to speed'?

-Is manager feedback regular and consistent? Are performance reviews on time?

-Are employees excited to come to work? Are any employees actively disengaged?

-How does turnover compare to the industry standard? Why do people stay or quit?

Hiring…

The best way to hire for a new role is to have the hiring manager do the job first. Once a list of strengths needed for the job is established, put one person in charge of going out and finding the right person for the job. Since every employee has at least one serious flaw, make sure to hire for strengths instead of looking for someone with no weaknesses.

Hiring decisions should be lonely. Group hiring decisions tend to find candidates lacking obvious weaknesses rather than identifying the person with the strengths needed to succeed.

If the new hire would benefit from extensive internal knowledge about the product or the company’s culture, promote from within instead of hiring an external candidate. The more important inside information is for succeeding in the role, the less the organization benefits from outside hires. If the company does not cultivate the needed strengths for the open position, hire an external candidate.

A small company should seek out candidates who prefer to create while a large company should seek out interruption-driven hires. Top candidates from smaller organizations are likely good at running a hiring process, creating process from scratch, becoming an expert in the product, and consistently launching creative projects or initiatives. Strong candidates from larger organizations are likely good at complex decision-making, prioritization, organizational design, process improvement, and organizational communication.

…and firing

The way a company handles layoffs is remembered by anyone who remains behind. If a layoff is handled poorly, the company will permanently lose the trust of their remaining employees.

Start a layoff by addressing the company. This is not for the people who are eventually let go; the message is intended for those kept behind. Be present through the process, help people carry out their belongings, and make it clear to those let go that you appreciated their efforts.

Managers must lay off their own people. The most important task is to admit the company's failure. A company successfully hitting its targets does not lay anybody off. Managers should explain how the company failed, have all the information about benefits ready for the impacted employee, and make it clear the decision is not negotiable.

If an executive is let go, inform the direct reports first, the rest of the executive staff second, and the company last. Take over for the vacant role unless it is wildly inappropriate because doing the job will provide helpful insights into what skills the ideal replacement must have. Make sure executive severance packages are large enough to acknowledge how much longer it takes people to find work at higher career levels (about ten times as long for an executive than the average salaried employee).

A manager who fires someone should know for sure the employee fully understood the expectations of the position. Prior to the firing, it should be made clear how these expectations are not being met and the consequences for ongoing failure must be understood by both manager and employee. Setting these expectations begins in training.

Training

If McDonald's trains employees, so should everyone else. No one is so smart to be exempt from ongoing training.

Training is the highest leverage activity any manager can perform for the organization. A successful leader should know the exact details of how to train. A manager who asks to hire more people should first present a formal training plan for integrating the new hire into the team.

New hires should come to individual meetings with their managers with lists of questions about the people they've met. Leaders should clarify which people are the most important to meet and demand reports on what the new hires learned from each meeting.

As a new hire gets settled into the team, the focus of training will shift. The weekly individual meeting is a great tool to guide this progress. It should always be based on the employee's agenda and the employee should contribute about 90% of the time. The point is to discuss any possible threats to productivity that do not come up naturally during the regular work period.

If the employee struggles to come up with a weekly agenda, suggest exploring the answers to the following questions:

-How can we improve?

-What's our biggest current problem that no one is attacking?

-Who is doing really well here? Who do you admire?

-What's fun about working here?

-What's not so fun?

-If you were me, what changes would you make?

-What is the biggest opportunity we are missing out on?

CEOs do not develop talent. If a person in the management team needs training, they are not good enough for the job. CEOs should leave the day-to-day details of training to their managers and focus instead on establishing and enforcing the communication architecture.

The CEO’s role in training is to ensure new people coming aboard at higher levels remain on track by meeting the right people and learning about the organization’s products. Since most people quit when they stop learning or stop getting feedback, CEOs should make sure their managers are continuously training their teams and always giving appropriate performance feedback.

i read men without women so you don't have to

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami (July 2017)

Murakami's most recently translated work is a collection of seven short stories. Each story is in some way about men living lives without women. In some cases, the theme is obvious (such as those set in the aftermath of a loss) while in others, the idea is vaguely present (such as the story where the narrator awakens to suddenly discover his metamorphosis into Gregor Samsa).

The story I liked most was 'Kino'. I read it early one morning and found it deeply moving. It contains so many elements I've grown accustomed to after reading almost all Murakami's work (a jazz bar, a lonely protagonist, unexplained mysterious forces) and I'm sure a fan of his other work will enjoy 'Kino' a great deal.

Luckily for you, reader, 'Kino' is available for free online. Follow the link here if interested (1).

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. Is it OK to include a footnote in the last sentence?

And lucky for you, reader, the entire collection is available for free at the library...

when i was your age, kneeling meant the game was won

There is a lot of talk around the NFL these days about the national anthem. Those unfamiliar with the story can get caught up here (or skip this post, I guess).

I don't have much to say on the topic, I'm afraid. I don't have a good feel for the issues underlying the controversy. In these cases, the best I can do is pay close attention and try to think clearly for myself. Sometimes, I notice things I file away to think about in more detail later.

Such a moment came during a recent trip to Fenway Park. The national anthem was played about ten minutes before the first pitch but, you see, I missed it. I was too busy peeing. (Hopefully, this revelation doesn't offend anyone.)

In my defense, so were a lot of other people. After I emerged from the full restroom, I decided against standing in line for a beer because these lines, too, were full. I would guess most of those in line had been there for several minutes and one national anthem.

All these people waiting for a hot dog, a beer, or a urinal shared one thing in common: no interest whatsoever in the national anthem. I have no idea what this means.

It's the same whenever I watch football on TV. Sometimes the networks show the national anthem and sometimes they don't. No one seems outraged. If anyone out there is demanding the networks include these performances consistently in their coverage, I'm unaware of it. Again, I have no idea what this means.

I don't know much about America right now or its 'fractured' political climate. I just know America, right now, is not the best it can be. I think it is hard to be your best when you lose track of who you are, though, and maybe this is a big part of the equation.

What is America supposed to be? If it is the land of opportunity, well, there are a lot of people literally dying to get into the country who might agree. But the number of impoverished is shockingly high for a country owning so much.

Is America the global leader in education and healthcare? I suppose the top universities and countless number of world-class hospitals support this view. But our schools do not produce the best students and our medical care is not the most affordable.

Is America a country committed to liberty and justice for all? I don't see much outright evidence to the contrary. And yet, when simple measures like education levels, health outcomes, and incarceration rates are broken down along racial lines, a contrary story emerges.

When I look at other countries, I see places doing things better than we do. It feels like we are losing a game and there is no evidence of an imminent return to the lead. Some counter here and point out how no one country is better than the USA at all of these things. In aggregate, perhaps all the things America does make it better than any other single country. This is a good point. But I still think America has a lot to work on before becoming its best possible self. There is just too much to work on for me to conclude otherwise.

The path to such a place is never clear. It didn't stop people from trying, some two plus centuries ago, to establish a place better than the alternatives. They did it by focusing on allowing individuals to become the best selves they could be. Maybe, the idea went, a country of free and equal people, all pursuing some standard of happiness, could one day together form a country good enough to justify the war required to create it.

A country abiding by those principles shouldn't have much room for one group of people telling another to stand instead of kneel. But there wouldn't be much ground to kneel on without the sacrifices from the military and their families.

I don't have a great feel for this situation. It feels complicated and the answer seems unlikely to be one thing or the other. I understand just enough about what is going on to provide a comment or two if needed, I suppose.

But why would I need to, you know? I wouldn't really know where to begin.

I guess some of the players are protesting police brutality...

Q: Am I against police brutality?

A: Yes, I am against police brutality.

Those protesting the protests are citing disrespect for military personnel...

Q: Am I against supporting our troops?

A: No, I happen to favor supporting our troops.

The debate is being framed as one or the other, but...

Q: Do you think it is possible to be against police brutality AND support our troops simultaneously?

A: I think it is possible to do both of these things at the same time.

I'm happy to clarify my stance on these issues, of course, but what have I really said here? And what do I do now that I'm back on my (albeit oversimplified) square one?

I guess my real question is: who is answering differently to these questions?

Until I know for sure, I'll just have to continue paying more attention and keep working on clarifying my thinking.

introducing...the bb book club

Guess who’s back?

As first reported in the November newsletter, I will start making regular contributions here on TOA over the coming months. In addition to posts in the style of the blog I wrote last year, I will also occasionally review books I’ve found helpful over the course of my career.

I thought for a little while about what the first book for this series should be. There were a few excellent candidates (and many horrible ones). I finally settled on Ben Horowitz’s Hard Thing About Hard Things. Unlike the other business books I’ve enjoyed over the years, this one is not written about companies where ‘all is well’. It does not describe the easy decisions made by a market leader with significant margin for error or the obvious investment projects started by a firm protected from hungry competitors.

Rather, Horowitz talks mostly about how to identify the best decision among a set of bad options. This book is for anyone who needs to calculate the correct answer, RIGHT NOW, instead of ‘playing the odds’ and relying on things to work out over the long-term. As the author himself points out, it’s a book about calculus, not statistics.

On the surface, the target reader for this book is a start-up CEO. The book’s many anecdotes mostly come from the author’s the experiences in such a role and its insights into scaling an organization, leading through uncertainty, and assessing executives are all more relevant for this type of CEO than they are for the general reader. However, I still felt there was plenty to learn from it for those interested in general concepts such as leadership, organizational design, or recruiting.

I’ve broken my review of the book into general categories. Over a number of coming Sundays, I’ll post these notes. Hopefully, you find some of my observations as useful as I have.

Until next time,

The Business Bro

catenaccio 1, coffee pot 0...actually...catenaccio 0, coffee pot 0

A few years ago, I was preparing to move into my first apartment. My mom asked me if I wanted to take anything from home when I moved out.

"Take what?" I asked.

"Anything. Maybe a coffee maker?" She held up a small but earnest plastic machine, most likely purchased pre-internet. It would make two cups of coffee every morning or die trying. I took it. If it broke I could always buy a new one.

Seven years later, the machine finally showed its first sign of wear. I don't even know how to describe the broken part. It's where the coffee comes out of the pot as it is poured. The lip? Anyway, this thing is usually shaped like the bottom half of a bird's beak. After I dropped the pot in May, 'the lip' is now shaped like the serrated edge of a dull knife.

The next day, I tried to pour my coffee. Instead of falling in a graceful arc into the mug, the coffee splashed all over the table. It looked like a passing thundercloud of light roast had just swept through my apartment. The 'broken lip' situation was more serious than I thought (though I did like the smell left by the spilled coffee).

I tried several solutions for the problem (the details of those failures are withheld out of my consideration for you, dear reader). After a week of spilling coffee, it was time for a new pot, right?

Ha.

The puzzle was solved early one morning. I poured my coffee, cleaned up the spill, and sat down with the remainder steaming in my mug. I battled grogginess, took a small sip of my half-ration, and wrote yet another scintillating blog post.

This post described a story I read years ago in a book about soccer tactics. It was about the invention of catenaccio, the famous Italian tactical system. The key insight came when a manger observed a fishing boat transfer its catch early one morning. In order to keep the fish falling out of the net during the transfer from being lost in the harbor, the boat had rigged a second net underneath the first. The fish falling out of the first net were caught by this second net.

The next morning, I poured half my coffee directly into my mug as usual. Then, I picked up the bowl I had placed underneath it and poured the other half of coffee from the bowl into the mug.

It's not a perfect solution. But the cup is full so it'll do.

the self-help book i'm not working on

Genre: Self-help

Title: No working title

Estimated publication date: Posthumous

There are a couple of topics I suspect I know quite a bit about. I eat, run, and save better than most people, for example. It is possible one day I will mold my expertise in these mundane matters into a decent self-help book.

But in the calculus of getting published, I think my lack of credentials limits my chances. This is nothing new for me. It seems most of the people I outdo prefer to pay experts such as nutritionists, trainers, or asset managers to tell them the same generic advice rather than just try my slightly unusual approaches.

So, I think I would need to cook up a gimmick. Instead of diving deep into one topic, maybe I'll limit my advice to one page per topic. I think this has some potential but leaves me the task of coming up with one to two hundred more topics about which I can dispense a page of advice. I'll need the rest of my life, I think, to accumulate a book written in this manner.

leftovers: letters from a self-made merchant to his son

I think some of what Graham points out regarding personal spending is inevitable in the way most are taught to approach money. Think about the casual attitude towards debt. A teenager who is not allowed to make decisions about alcohol purchases is allowed to borrow a six-figure sum for college tuition.

When I was seventeen, I rarely knew what I was doing next Tuesday. Did it make any sense to expect me to understand the burden of repaying a six-figure loan amount? Probably not. And I'm unaware of any reason why this should be different for a seventeen year-old today.

It seems normal only because of its prevalence. What the majority does becomes what everyone does and what everyone does defines normal.

Maybe arguments for and against loan forgiveness should start with a basic question: was the borrower a minor? If the question is good enough for murder trials, it should be good enough for a bank.

reading review: reflections on the way to the gallows

Reflections on the Way to the Gallows by Mikiso Hane (October 2017)

This is a book I originally bought a decade ago as assigned reading for a college course about feminism in Japan. It made almost no impression on me at the time. But when I stumbled upon it last year while cleaning out my room, I thought it might be worth another attempt.

Hane organizes various writings from women doomed by their beliefs, views, or activities. The collection illustrates what Japanese feminism was in the context of the first half of the 20th century and there were plenty of references to gender inequality throughout.

And yet, I thought the collection was more about poverty than it was about feminism. For each reference these writers made to the difficulties brought on by gender inequality, many more were made about how poverty dictated their condition. Establishing gender equality was only part of a larger philosophy aimed at lifting the working class out of poverty.

Those who identified themselves as socialists captured this best. Though the societal goals of their movement included both gender equality and the elimination of poverty, the latter was the far greater concern. They feared that a mere revolt would not be enough to make lasting changes to society because power changing hands still meant power would remain in someone’s hands. The near-guarantee that these new hands would be male and remain a major obstacle to Japan achieving gender equality was an important consideration, of course. But for those concerned with advancing the goals of the socialist movement, the question of unequal wealth accumulation was considered more important for the short-term future of Japanese society.

One up: A notable link among the many women featured in this collection was a belief in the vital role of education (especially learning English). But for women of the time, access to education was not a given. The anecdote best exemplifying this reality came from a woman who was kicked out of a course because the school defined the word ‘student’ as ‘a male who attends school’.

One reason this particular group of women seemed so intent on being educated may have been based on their observations about how judges used education level as a factor in sentencing. By using schooling as a proxy for future earning power, judges may have discriminated in the way they treated two otherwise identical criminals.

Of course, the matter was not as simple as just picking up a book or two. For most impoverished Japanese, a little bit of extra education was not enough to lift them out of poverty. Thus, the uneducated of pre-war Japan found it better to continue devoting their time to working for the scraps on offer rather than devoting resources to becoming better educated.

One down: As always, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to read about today’s issues in a book written a century ago.

One writer points out how suggesting the lower class ignores goals such as becoming 'spiritual' or 'cultured' purely by choice is a subtle form of elitism. Do the poor spend life gathering basic necessities out of choice?

Another criticizes the government for abandoning inmates once they are released from prison. If the government does not help the prisoner reintegrate into society, the security of prison life will tempt the convict back to crime.

A third writer ponders the morality of relying on charity to help others meet basic needs. Is it truly charitable if the act benefits the giver more than the receiver?

Just saying: In some cases, a title is helpful in describing the book. I’m not so sure about this one. Though some of the writing came from authors awaiting execution, in many cases the entries showcased here were journal entries or letters drafted many miles from prison cells.

I suppose this phenomenon explains the use of subtitles. But in this case, the subtitle - Rebel Women in Prewar Japan - is not all-descriptive because some of these writers cannot be described as 'rebels'.

Just saying, part two: I really liked the idea that once people become accustomed to doing their best, it becomes very difficult to live doing anything else.

Just saying, part three: For those curious, Japan is currently ranked 114th in gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum.

Please refer HERE for the grisly details.

I can only assume we are so low in the ranking because the one hundred and thirteen countries ahead of us achieved perfect gender equality in the past year.

words to live by: the need for roots

In an October reading review for Simone Weil’s Need For Roots, I mentioned how the book was littered with sharp observations about various elements of society. I’ve organized them here into a combination of a ‘Q&A’ format and the 'words to live by' concept I rolled out for this March post.

Good luck...

Tim

*********

Q: When has a civilization progressed?

A: Each time a person is freed from hunger.

Q: And regressed?

A: When those suffering beyond capacity cling to their pain in order to ensure their suffering was not in vain. Healthy bodies expel illness.

Q: Define respect.

A: Respect is caring for another’s Earthly needs. A cornfield is due great respect.

 Q: How can an institution express equality?

A: It must demonstrate each person’s value without using varying increments or degrees.

Q: Define fair trade.

A: If materials are wasted or morals are violated, the exchange must be reexamined.

Q: What is the danger of money?

A: Figures relax the mind because of their simplicity.

Q: What obligation is capitalism failing to fulfill?

A: Training workers to meet tomorrow’s demands. Failing to account for joy in work is a close second, though. Nothing makes up for the loss of joy in work.

Q: Are new groups being effectively assimilated into the culture?

A: Groups often appear assimilated when their culture is taken away or destroyed. What does not stand out appears assimilated.

Q: Why does science fail?

A: It creates a logical end: force reigns supreme. Planets enter orbit or are crushed just as columns unable to bear the roof are flattened. Are people special exceptions to this truth? The threat of totalitarianism is an extension of science.

Q: A final thought?

A: We too easily dismiss evil deeds as ‘products of the times’. Evil must be identified and labeled even if this contradicts our established notions of great men. The way we study history must change until evil is labeled for the act itself. If we fail to identify evil correctly when examining the past, we will fail to identify evil correctly when examining the present.

the books i'm not working on

I've picked up on an interesting pattern from the author events I've attended over the past year and a half. It seems many of the authors I've seen in person thought about a book idea for quite a long time before starting to write the book (1).

The first time I noticed this was at Colson Whitehead's Boston Book Festival appearance last October. He talked about wondering in grade school what it would have been like if the Underground Railroad was literally an underground railroad. Decades later, he published The Underground Railroad to great response.

Appearances by Min Jin Lee and George Saunders this past February produced similar revelations. Lee spoke to her audience about how Pachinko took over fifteen years (fifteen years!) to finish (2). Saunders first conceived the idea for his 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo sometime during the 1990s.

The more I think about this, the more it makes sense. As I read in one of Anne Truitt's journals, a project started prematurely risks the final product skewing too far in the direction of raw emotion. Such art lacks the correct balance of feeling and understanding. Given the charged emotional content of what these authors wrote about (oppression, discrimination, loss) I sensed Truitt's insight explained the extended 'incubation periods' of the novels these writers discussed during their appearances (3).

I realized just the other day that, were I ever to publish a book, I could possibly experience the same situation (4). Put another way, any book ideas I come up with now might become the books I write in twenty years or so. I put my brain to work and came up with a few unlikely ideas...

Each Tuesday over the next few months, I'll share a description of such a book I'm currently NOT working on. If you like the idea, let me know and maybe I'll write it during my mid-life crisis.

To keep things from spiraling out of control around these parts, though, I'll try to limit it to one book per 'genre' (a word I'm going to interpret very loosely).

Enjoy!

Footnotes / imagined complaints

0. By the way...

Feel free to steal any or all of these ideas coming up over the next few weeks.

1. I don't know what I was expecting, I guess...

Although I cannot remember exactly what I thought about an author's 'incubation period' before going to these events, it must have been shorter given my surprise.

2. Fifteen years! The Big Dig moved faster, I think.

At one point, Lee revealed to us her decision to throw away an entire draft of a finished novel for something vaguely resembling Pachinko.

3. In the case of TOA, it's actually just true.

My experience with this blog confirms the idea as well. I have close to one hundred ideas, outlines, or half-written drafts for future blog posts. A lot of the time, I start writing only to admit I am not actually going to complete the post.

Again, the idea of balance comes into play for these blogs as they might have for the books referenced above: topics written about too soon tend to come out distorted in the direction of raw emotion, stubbornly refuse to consider other viewpoints, or overlook simple but crucial details (like maintaining verb tense correctly through a sentence).

4. Because fortune cookies never lie...

A fortune cookie once revealed my future to me: 'you are a lover of words and someday you will write a book'. So that's settled, right?

I've been patiently waiting for this book to appear ever since.

the toa newsletter - november 2017

Hi,

Did you know November 2 is 'Look For Circles Day'?

Me neither.

Let's celebrate with some circular bullet points:

● Speaking of monthly celebrations, November should be 'A Blog Post Every Day Month' on TOA. Or in plain English: starting next Thursday, look for a blog post.

● For those trying to keep track at home, this is what to expect on TOA until I drop dead from blogging-induced exhaustion:

● Sunday: Reading Review
● Monday: Leftovers
● Tuesday: 'Reading Review' hypothetical book series (more on this tomorrow)
● Wednesday: Ranting/raving essay-like substance
● Thursday: (NEW!) short post, ~300 words
● Friday: Wednesday (except shorter)
● Saturday: Sunday (except shorter)

● New faces coming in UPDATE #1: I am overjoyed to confirm the return of 'Talking Shits' under a new banner: Master Pu's Pu-Pu Platter.

I don’t know who this Master Pu is. He barely spoke when I interviewed him for the job. But when he did speak…WHOA! It should be an interesting attempt to revive a dying concept for TOA.

● New faces coming in UPDATE #2: I am less than pleased to confirm the return of Moya. Longtime readers will recall his bimonthly rants in the 'proper admin' series. One day, he showed up and just started ranting. I asked him to leave but he kept talking. Finally, I poured him a whiskey and offered him a job.

● New faces coming in UPDATE #3: I am greatly saddened to confirm the return of The Business Bro to these parts. I guess his 'separate blog' venture never panned out. Look for him to mind his own business on these pages every so often.

● Thanks for reading this past month.

● Tim

●●●●●●●●●

Books I'm excited to (probably) read this month...

Dense: Broken Vessels by Andre Dubus

Dubus is well known for his accomplishments in short fiction (because you know this is true whenever an author has a book published with a title like Selected Stories) but I've opted to start into his work with this collection of twenty-two personal essays.

The Goodreads.com summary described his writing in Broken Vessels as 'sensitive but never maudlin'. I'll be sure to run the rule over that assessment, reader, as I work through this collection in the coming weeks.

Stop-and-go: Threads by Kate Evans

This book is set in 'The Jungle', a refugee camp located within the French port town of Calais. Evans volunteered there for several months and produced this book as a result of her reporting.

What makes this book a little different is its use of 'comic journalism'. I only flipped through a few pages at random when I checked this out but I suspect I'm on to something good here, reader.

Light: The QB Whisperer by Bruce Arians

Arians is an NFL head coach who has worked with several top quarterbacks over the course of his decades-long coaching career. This book will be an interesting look into some of his insights about helmet football's most difficult position.

It will not go down in history as one of the most difficult books I will ever read. This is not unusual for these kinds of sports books where the 'author' is really just speaking to a writer who is organizing the commentary into book form. I'm looking forward to this one but cannot recommend it to any reader not already interested in quarterbacking.

In the next month of...True On Average...

1) I eat some peanut M&Ms before a job interview.
2) I organize a search party for some missing colors.
3) A lesson on how to say 'do shut up'...in Japanese!

See you in November...

i'm awake, i'm awake!

One of my favorite "maybe it's true, maybe it's not" nuggets from history is how some people thought coffee would make sleeping a purely recreational activity. The story sounds a little crazy now, several hundred years later, but I think there is a certain logic to the thinking. If sleep restores energy and coffee restores energy, why wouldn't one substitute for the other? Who needs sleep when another caffeine hit will keep the good times rolling, right?

Unfortunately, sleep does more than just restore energy. So although coffee is an effective energy source, it only replaces one part of a larger set of sleep's benefits. At this point, the initial logic (just like the coffee-dependent body) breaks down.

The story reminds me of how some advocate eating several small meals per day as a weight loss strategy. This approach is based on another bit of simple logic. Since the metabolism burns calories if it is running and constantly eating keeps the metabolism running, why wouldn't keeping the metabolism constantly running lead to eventual weight loss? Who has ever seen a burning furnace accumulate wood, right?

A few years ago, I heard this line of thinking and thought it made sense. The key was to have digestible food in the stomach at all times because doing otherwise would lead to periods of slow metabolism. The best way to apply the solution was a constant stream of small meals keeping the metabolism rolling along. It sounds almost too good to be true: take exactly what you eat now, cut each meal in two, double the number of meals, and watch the pounds melt away.

The problem with the logic is similar to the coffee example. Hunger, I suspect, does more than just slow the metabolism. So although constant eating prevents the metabolism from slowing down, it also reverses the other positive processes the body goes through while hungry.

Or, at least, this is an idea. Based on what I've learned so far, no one seems to know for sure what the benefits of a hungry period are. In this uncertain area, I'm willing to bet the benefits of hungry periods outweigh the benefits of keeping the metabolism running nonstop. It would align with the way a number of the body's other systems benefit from periods of discomfort or stress. My muscles, for example, grow when I strength train and my bones get stronger from the impact of walking. The cardiovascular system benefits each time vigorous exercise elevates my heartbeat.

Could the digestive system be an exception? Of course it could. I'm no expert in this area and I have my eyes open for new information. Just as I did in discarding my 'small meals' eating plan, I might also scrap my current pattern involving occasional twenty-four hour fasting. If you have this information in hand, reader, let me know and I'll get right on it.

But I can't shake the thought of how machines left running all the time eventually wear down. Their demise, in some cases, is spectacular. And what about all those religions incorporating fasting into their belief systems? Surely, we would have observed something in the collective health of these people if controlled fasting was such a bad idea. A little bit of hunger, I think, must lead to some form of benefit somewhere in the vastly complex system of my human body.

But again, that's just an idea. My logic is sound, just like the logic of that first coffee drinker, his mind wired by the caffeine jolt, reveling in the vision of a future without the wasted hours of sleep...