Welcome to the TOA newsletter, a monthly rubble bucket of notes, comments, and poorly written observations I couldn’t quite fit into a post.
Rubble bucket?
Well…
Let’s start with some leftover comments from recent (and not so recent) posts.
Leftovers – my ten year Hiroshima anniversay
I’ve always marked the anniversary of my Hiroshima trip because I look back on it as a foundational moment for me in terms of how I view America’s role in the world. You could say, reader, that on July 26, 2008, I permanently exchanged my clear-cut conclusions about the USA for murkier interpretations. I woke up that morning firm in my belief that using nuclear weapons to end WWII was wrong; I went to bed that night thinking about how America was still bombing civilians, sixty-plus years later, and wondering whether debating the type of bomb that killed a civilian was maybe missing the point.
Over the past couple of years, I think a lot of people around me saw their fanciful understandings about the country’s greatness come under a strong challenge. I’ve been proud of the way many around me have responded and continued to find ways to make America a better place despite their shifting perceptions about how America was holding up its end of the bargain in the world community. When it comes to building a better world, everything counts – every vote, every protest, every light that seeks truth in the darkness. Someday, when all these little acts add up, we’ll be able to look back on the past as The Past, as something that happened long ago in a place we’ll never return to, and marvel at all the little things people did every day to finally bring the future into the present.
Leftovers – Bring the Noise
As the World Cup fades into the past (The Past?), I thought I’d revisit this book about Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and cover a couple of lingering thoughts that did not make it into my initial reading review.
First, Klopp makes a good observation that players who become coaches must take an interest in tactics. It would be foolish to suggest this is the one factor that separates a player who successfully transitions into management from a player who does not, of course, but players who are not interested in the strategic side of the sport often have too much ground to make up on managers who have been working on their craft for far longer.
On the other hand, tactical acumen is not the only factor. Like with any manager, the role requires being able to train and being able to motivate. The best story in this book was about Klopp’s first speech as a manager, a speech I'll summarize as follows – Klopp just talked and talked until everyone believed they were good. As a former player, Klopp understood that underperformers were often strong players who simply required an infusion of confidence or belief. This is likely a difficult concept for a manager who never played to grasp because they are more likely to see player performance as being unrelated to how a player feels (and probably unable to relate at all to a player who doesn't feel like playing). Given Klopp’s great success as a manger, I would argue the evidence suggests motivation and confidence matter far more than most tactical geniuses give it credit for.
Updating previous items – World Cup update
In my July newsletter, I wrote:
I write this on the morning of June 24, just a couple of hours before Japan takes the field against Senegal with its biggest soccer opportunity since blowing a penalty shootout again Paraguay in the 2010 tournament – with a win, Japan is sure to advance out of the group stage. I put the odds at 25% chance of a fluke win, a 50% chance of a humiliating loss, and a 25% chance I have a heart attack while yelling ‘HONDAAAAA!!!!!’.Bizarrely, it turned out to be the latter – Honda scored a critical goal with ten minutes left, I yelled ‘HONDAAAA!!!!!’ at the top of my lungs, and I spent the remainder of the game trying to catch my breath while lying facedown on the floor.
I’m going to take another month or two to digest the tournament before returning to have a look at some of my half-baked predictions and make some closing remarks.
Links from July
I liked this article from The Irish Times (despite its somewhat sensational premise) because of the simplicity in its process – observe something, think clearly about it, and explain the thinking in writing. As I noted above, some things from our past aren’t as far in the rear-view mirror as our history professors would have us think. Even if fascism isn’t the right word, it’s more important ‘to call it like you see it’ than it is to worry about your conclusion being a little rough around the edges.
A podcast episode I liked a lot from July was Jason Fried’s appearance on The Tim Ferris Show. Longtime readers may recall how much I liked Fried’s Rework and this episode covered a lot of familiar territory in terms of Fried sharing his worldview with an audience.
I was especially interested to hear Fried expand on his comment from Rework about good writing being a strong indicator of good thinking. The context of his comment regarded the emphasis he placed on writing skills during the hiring process for his software firm. As he points out in both the book and this podcast episode, most of today’s communications happen in some form of writing – email, text messaging, TOA, etc. Thus, it is important to get a sense of a candidate’s writing skills at some point during the interview process. I borrowed this idea a few years ago and incorporated a post-interview writing assignment into my own hiring process with good returns and I recommend the same for anyone who takes on a hiring manager role.
A nice feature of the episode was a series of informal book recommendations. Ferris and Fried talked about Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin and Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders by Warren Buffet in particular. Both of these books have been on my own to-read list for most of my post-college years and I think it’s just about the right time for me to consider finally getting around to reading them.
TOA Book of the Year update
Huh?
Shocking… did you leave the apartment at all? Or did you just sit around listening to podcasts?
I actually left the house quite a bit in July, I’ll have you know, but I think we’re running long again so maybe we’ll do a summer wrap up next month instead.
No format changes… for once?
I’ve made a number of pointless changes to the TOA format over the years and last month was no exception. So far, so good with those adjustments – for once, I feel like I put some thought into it and I hope I’ve struck the right balance for the future.
Anything else?
Not really, I suppose.
As a final thought, here’s a quote I enjoyed from Bring The Noise:
“My favorite quote is by Lukas Podolski – football is like chess, but without dice. I’d change that slightly to make it – football is like chess, but with dice.”Thanks for reading in July.
Tim
In the next month of… True On Average…
1. We remaster a bit of Aesop's outdated work.
2. Is my library card a flu shot?
3. Let's study my footprints!
