Yeah, I know, I got to whining in that last post. After I wrote that post, a few things came to mind. First, the nature of my life right now, having no "real" job, gives me time to consume a lot more news and books than most people with busier lives can. I went off in that post about how I don't have anyone to talk to who reads similar books or listens to all the You Tube speeches and talks that I do. After writing that post, I realized, "Oh yeah... I'm a blogger, part of my role is to find out stuff that other people haven't heard of, and let them know about it." If you all read the same books I do, and consumed all the other info I do, then there wouldn't be much point in me blogging.
Another point I ranted about ( a little) is that many people in North Carolina, especially civic leaders, are way behind the times, and are looking for Industrial Age answers to Information Age problems. Again, most people don't consume the same info that I do, and part of my role is to find new info and share it. At the same time, most people I know have smart phones, and I don't. So I'm behind the times in that way. So I'll try to stop whining and get back to trying to bring all of you a variety of information that will interest you, inform you, and hopefully help you to use a greater part of your potential as a human being.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Should You Watch The News
This post was inspired by a conversation with some church members last night while we were at a function to cook dinner for a children's charity. I don't mean to call anyone out, the conversation just surprised me. I go to a fairly small Methodist church that has an incredibly active membership. They do a lot of good work on many fronts to help people in our region and in other parts of the world. Last night, while standing around watching one of our members grill burgers at this event, several of us were talking about a variety of things. The subject of watching the news came up. I think what spurred it was talk about a horrible truck crash that happened last week in our area. One of the people said he doesn't watch the news... at all... because, "there's nothing good on the news." To my surprise, most of the people standing there agreed. Most of them, it seems, don't watch the news.
Now I understand how people can be turned off by all the negativity on both local and national TV news. I understand how the persistent negativity actually stresses some people out because they feel overwhelmed, and sometimes really fearful, about all the bad things happening in this world. But we are in a period of time where the world is changing rapidly and dramatically on virtually every level. If you want to be functional in today's world, you have to have some sense of what's going on. One thing that really bugs me about North Carolina is that the local, regional, and state leaders seem to still be operating from a 20th century, industrial age, point of view. They seem to make decisions based on the way things worked 40 or 50 years ago. Because of this, they are spending millions of dollars to try and get a major auto manufacturing plant to locate somewhere in NC to put people a few thousand people back to work. But they're not spending a similar amount of money to encourage 21st century entrepreneurship, which has an even greater chance of creating a large number of good jobs here. Teacher pay in NC is 42nd in the nation, according to a ranking I heard the other day, so education is not a major priority here. The energy lobbies here are fighting solar and wind farms. The list of old ideas goes on and on. To top it off, a recent news report said unemployment is starting to edge higher in the state, which seemed to baffle everyone.
Could this reluctance to embrace today's world and today's technology be happening in part because so many people here simply don't watch the news? I, personally, watch several TV news programs each day, and am always reading books and listening to online speeches and talks about the future of business, technology, communication, and society in general. Few, if any, of the people I talk to day to day, do the same. They are simply not aware that there is a brain drain in this country, where the smartest people coming out of college are heading to the U.S.'s mega-cities. No one I know here is aware of the growth of mega-regions around this country and the world, which are simultaneously killing off many former industrial small cities and towns, including the region where I now live. In effect, most of the communities in this U.S. are being run by the intellectual "2nd and 3rd string," as the smartest people migrate to the best jobs in big cities. No one I deal with daily is familiar with professor Richard Florida's concept of "the Creative Class," the documented theory that today's best tech people and entrepreneurs are clustering in areas of "Technology, Talent, and Tolerance," as Florida puts it. It's no news flash that the American South is not the most tolerant place, as the recent rebel flag controversy points out. But these days, tolerance of fringe groups of people is not just a cultural issue, it's an economic development issue with huge ramifications.
I keep my mouth shut most of the time with the people I interact with day to day, because they just don't spend the time I do learning about future trends. But these trends to affect all of our daily lives. Maybe watching and clicking on, and reading, and listening to various news sources is one of the ways people everywhere can begin to improve their own regions. How much do you pay attention to what's happening in the world today? Does an avoidance of news affect your life in a negative way? I'll let you ponder that idea today.
Now I understand how people can be turned off by all the negativity on both local and national TV news. I understand how the persistent negativity actually stresses some people out because they feel overwhelmed, and sometimes really fearful, about all the bad things happening in this world. But we are in a period of time where the world is changing rapidly and dramatically on virtually every level. If you want to be functional in today's world, you have to have some sense of what's going on. One thing that really bugs me about North Carolina is that the local, regional, and state leaders seem to still be operating from a 20th century, industrial age, point of view. They seem to make decisions based on the way things worked 40 or 50 years ago. Because of this, they are spending millions of dollars to try and get a major auto manufacturing plant to locate somewhere in NC to put people a few thousand people back to work. But they're not spending a similar amount of money to encourage 21st century entrepreneurship, which has an even greater chance of creating a large number of good jobs here. Teacher pay in NC is 42nd in the nation, according to a ranking I heard the other day, so education is not a major priority here. The energy lobbies here are fighting solar and wind farms. The list of old ideas goes on and on. To top it off, a recent news report said unemployment is starting to edge higher in the state, which seemed to baffle everyone.
Could this reluctance to embrace today's world and today's technology be happening in part because so many people here simply don't watch the news? I, personally, watch several TV news programs each day, and am always reading books and listening to online speeches and talks about the future of business, technology, communication, and society in general. Few, if any, of the people I talk to day to day, do the same. They are simply not aware that there is a brain drain in this country, where the smartest people coming out of college are heading to the U.S.'s mega-cities. No one I know here is aware of the growth of mega-regions around this country and the world, which are simultaneously killing off many former industrial small cities and towns, including the region where I now live. In effect, most of the communities in this U.S. are being run by the intellectual "2nd and 3rd string," as the smartest people migrate to the best jobs in big cities. No one I deal with daily is familiar with professor Richard Florida's concept of "the Creative Class," the documented theory that today's best tech people and entrepreneurs are clustering in areas of "Technology, Talent, and Tolerance," as Florida puts it. It's no news flash that the American South is not the most tolerant place, as the recent rebel flag controversy points out. But these days, tolerance of fringe groups of people is not just a cultural issue, it's an economic development issue with huge ramifications.
I keep my mouth shut most of the time with the people I interact with day to day, because they just don't spend the time I do learning about future trends. But these trends to affect all of our daily lives. Maybe watching and clicking on, and reading, and listening to various news sources is one of the ways people everywhere can begin to improve their own regions. How much do you pay attention to what's happening in the world today? Does an avoidance of news affect your life in a negative way? I'll let you ponder that idea today.
Monday, September 21, 2015
How Things Have Changed In My Lifetime
Yesterday I went to a wedding. I wasn't a friend of the bride or groom, I was called on to shoot video of the wedding. They needed someone on short notice, and the bride's parents remembered I had mentioned doing video work in the past. As a video guy, weddings always make me kind of nervous. For the bride, it's one of the biggest events of her life, if not the biggest. And I don't want to screw that up. In this case, I was using someone else's camera and equipment, which I wasn't familiar with, which made things a bit harder. But all in all, I think it went well. I stood back and shot video as a young millenial couple began their life together. Afterwards, that got me thinking about the first few weddings I shot video of back in the late 1980's, and the way the world has changed since then. Since I've been blogging and learning about the way the world works in the internet/laptop/smart phone age, this is a constant theme for me.
I first shot video of a wedding about two years before yesterday's bride was born. At one of those early weddings, I borrowed a betacam from work. It was a monstrous, 35 pound professional video camera that cost $50,000. If you remember the big TV news cameras of the late 80's, that's the kind I'm talking about. The consumer camera I used yesterday was about 1/3 the size of the battery of that big betacam. The tiny video camera I used yesterday was HD quality, far better than the betacam. In the 1980's, a good quality edit bay to edit that betacam video cost half a million dollars. Now you can edit video with a $600 laptop. A top of the line video editing computer might cost $5,000.
In the late 1980's, the photographers at a wedding, both the hired pro and amateurs, used 35mm film, so they limited their photos to just those that were necessary to avoid developing costs. Yesterday's pro photographers used digital cameras, allowing them a nearly unlimited amount of shots. The first bulky car phones had just come out in the late 80's, and no one had one at the weddings I shot video of. Yesterday, I watched the brides maids, grooms men, and nearly everyone else at the event taking photos and scrolling through their smart phones when nothing else was going on.
On one level, the wedding yesterday was very similar to those where I shot video years ago. There was a ceremony in a church, then a reception with toasts, dancing, cake cutting, the bouquet toss, and the garter toss. On another level, it was much different. People around the city, the country, maybe even around the world saw pics of the wedding as it happened. I learned late in the ceremony that the bride and groom weren't going on a honeymoon, they were both going back to work and school the next day. You rarely saw that happen in the 80's. On one hand, yesterday's couple has access to all this amazing technology. On another hand, they live in a time where it's much harder to make a really good living. In the 80's, many people still worked a single job for long periods of time, if not their whole career. In today's 21st century high tech world, I read recently that most people starting out today will work 4 to 6 careers in their lifetime. Not 4 to 6 jobs, but different careers. The retirement pensions from those lifetime jobs are largely gone. People today have to figure out their retirement plan by themselves. In addition, tens of thousands of jobs, if not actually millions, have been taken over by robots or transferred to lower wage countries. The young couple I met yesterday are starting their life together in a tumultuous time of continual change in technology, work, and everyday life. It may be decades before things really settle down to a calmer state.
Job security is virtually a thing of the past, because even huge corporations now go bankrupt because they have trouble keeping pace with the changing times. Hewlett Packard, a technology giant, recently announced they will be laying off about 25,000 people. A Miller/Coors brewery an hour away from here is closing down, complaining that micro-brew beers are taking its market share. Stories like these are on the news nearly every week. What is life going to be like for that young couple married yesterday? What's it going to be like for older people like me, who have to re-invent ourselves after an industry we were in collapsed? These are things I wrestle with every day. We are living in interesting times, and it looks like they'll be interesting and changing rapidly for a long time to come.
I first shot video of a wedding about two years before yesterday's bride was born. At one of those early weddings, I borrowed a betacam from work. It was a monstrous, 35 pound professional video camera that cost $50,000. If you remember the big TV news cameras of the late 80's, that's the kind I'm talking about. The consumer camera I used yesterday was about 1/3 the size of the battery of that big betacam. The tiny video camera I used yesterday was HD quality, far better than the betacam. In the 1980's, a good quality edit bay to edit that betacam video cost half a million dollars. Now you can edit video with a $600 laptop. A top of the line video editing computer might cost $5,000.
In the late 1980's, the photographers at a wedding, both the hired pro and amateurs, used 35mm film, so they limited their photos to just those that were necessary to avoid developing costs. Yesterday's pro photographers used digital cameras, allowing them a nearly unlimited amount of shots. The first bulky car phones had just come out in the late 80's, and no one had one at the weddings I shot video of. Yesterday, I watched the brides maids, grooms men, and nearly everyone else at the event taking photos and scrolling through their smart phones when nothing else was going on.
On one level, the wedding yesterday was very similar to those where I shot video years ago. There was a ceremony in a church, then a reception with toasts, dancing, cake cutting, the bouquet toss, and the garter toss. On another level, it was much different. People around the city, the country, maybe even around the world saw pics of the wedding as it happened. I learned late in the ceremony that the bride and groom weren't going on a honeymoon, they were both going back to work and school the next day. You rarely saw that happen in the 80's. On one hand, yesterday's couple has access to all this amazing technology. On another hand, they live in a time where it's much harder to make a really good living. In the 80's, many people still worked a single job for long periods of time, if not their whole career. In today's 21st century high tech world, I read recently that most people starting out today will work 4 to 6 careers in their lifetime. Not 4 to 6 jobs, but different careers. The retirement pensions from those lifetime jobs are largely gone. People today have to figure out their retirement plan by themselves. In addition, tens of thousands of jobs, if not actually millions, have been taken over by robots or transferred to lower wage countries. The young couple I met yesterday are starting their life together in a tumultuous time of continual change in technology, work, and everyday life. It may be decades before things really settle down to a calmer state.
Job security is virtually a thing of the past, because even huge corporations now go bankrupt because they have trouble keeping pace with the changing times. Hewlett Packard, a technology giant, recently announced they will be laying off about 25,000 people. A Miller/Coors brewery an hour away from here is closing down, complaining that micro-brew beers are taking its market share. Stories like these are on the news nearly every week. What is life going to be like for that young couple married yesterday? What's it going to be like for older people like me, who have to re-invent ourselves after an industry we were in collapsed? These are things I wrestle with every day. We are living in interesting times, and it looks like they'll be interesting and changing rapidly for a long time to come.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
When A Man Or A Woman Really Is An Island
A quick Google search told me that it was John Donne who first wrote the line, "No man is an island." Others have undoubtedly used that line over the centuries. The meaning is fairly straight forward, none of us is a world unto ourselves. Each of us is part of a larger whole. We all understand that.
But I want to argue that point, for a moment. There is a time when a man or woman really feels like an island. There's a point where a person has an idea. Maybe it's an idea for a book, maybe it's an idea for a business or something else. Whatever it is, there is a point where everything we see around us was once a thought in somebody's head. At that point, when you're the one with the idea, it often feels like you're all alone. At that point, not a single person on Earth has been brought aboard the idea, and it seems every single person on the planet thinks it's a bad idea. That's when a person can feel like an island. When you first express this idea, nobody agrees. There are two reasons for this. 1) It really is a bad idea and everyone can see that. Or 2) it is a good idea, and no one else has the foresight to see just how good it can be. A lot of ideas, both bad and good, are tossed aside at this point, because the person with the idea loses faith.
This is the point I'm at in my life right now. I have an idea of what I want to do to earn a living, and absolutely no one thinks it's a good idea... yet. For quite a while now, I've been struggling with a variety of issues, medical and otherwise, and trying to find a way to earn a living in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina. I'll admit, I look terrible on paper. My last ten years is a series of taxi driving jobs in both California and North Carolina, not one of which has the records to prove I actually worked for them. In addition, there are big gaps in my employment. On top of that, people tend to think that taxi drivers can only drive, and they tend to simply go on to the next resume' when I apply for a "normal" job. For years now, I've been trying to dumb myself down just to get an entry level job... ANY job. At that same time, I was blogging and self-educating myself about the internet and the world of "new media." There are VERY few businesses around here who use new media channels very well. Businesses have websites and Facebook pages, and maybe even a Twitter stream, but they don't use these channels to their full potential. So with everything I've learned over the last several years, it became clear that my best chance of making a living would be to create my own job, not get one that already exists. Of course, to everyone else, and I mean ABSOLUTELY everyone I know right now, it just looks like I'm lazy.
On a church trip the other day, one of the old guys I know brought up a new restaurant being built in town, it's called Dairy-O. It's going to be something like a Dairy Queen or maybe even a Sonic. It's being built on a major road right next to a Wendy's. The man went on to say that Dairy-O will take a lot of business from that Wendy's, because it takes FOREVER to get waited on at that particular Wendy's. He's right. Everyone listening to the conversation agreed. The man said he talked to the manager of that Wendy's about why it takes so long to get served, and the manager said that he can't find good employees. When he hires a young person to work there, they simply don't want to work hard. I chimed in at that point. I told him that that particular Wendy's was the only place in town that actually called me for an interview. The assistant manager who interviewed me seemed interested in hiring me, in part because I had three years of restaurant experience earlier in my life. But she had reservations about my weight, which she hinted at. She seemed to think that I wouldn't be able to stand for a whole shift. When I called back a week later, as she told me to, she said they had hired someone else and didn't need me. The Wendy's that says it "can't find good people," wouldn't hire me. I was a really good employee at every restaurant I worked at. Maybe, just maybe, the management of that particular Wendy's doesn't know good people when they see them.
In any case, after a long time of trying to dumb myself down to find an entry level job here, I've decided to do just the opposite. I'm going to stretch myself and my particular talents by giving workshops to people who want to find their passion in life. Yes, that sounds crazy. But I've given these workshops 25 years ago for friends and family members, and they were helpful to everyone who went through the workshop. So here I am, dusting off an old idea, and running with it. And every single person I know thinks I'm crazy right now. My mom just walked by and asked if I was blogging as I typed that last sentence. When I said, "Yes," she replied, "it's nice you have nothing to do." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In today's world, blogging can be work. This IS my job. This is the 21st Century, most of the factories have closed down and moved to other countries. As marketing expert has put it, "the time when people get paid above average wages for average work is over." Many other jobs have been taken over by robots doing the work humans once did. Creating and working with ideas and knowledge IS the work these days. Giving thoughts and ideas away through blogging or Facebook or Twitter or You Tube IS part of the work in today's world. It isn't work for everyone, but it is for a lot of people. No one I know around here understands this. But then, no one I know reads the books I read, listens to all the talks online that I listen to, or delves into the "new media channels" that are changing the way we communicate and how business gets done these days. No one else sees the opportunities I see right now. I'm an island at the moment. But that's OK. Unlike most people, I've been in this position before.
In the early 1980's, I started racing and then doing tricks on a little bike in Boise, Idaho. Everyone I knew thought I was crazy. Two years later I was working at the top BMX magazines in the country. A year later I was working at a video company producing the first alternative sports TV shows. A few years after that I was working on the stage crew of American Gladiators, one of the highest rated TV shows at that time. The BMX thing worked out pretty well for me and for a lot of other people I know. What I'm doing now might work out, too.
But I want to argue that point, for a moment. There is a time when a man or woman really feels like an island. There's a point where a person has an idea. Maybe it's an idea for a book, maybe it's an idea for a business or something else. Whatever it is, there is a point where everything we see around us was once a thought in somebody's head. At that point, when you're the one with the idea, it often feels like you're all alone. At that point, not a single person on Earth has been brought aboard the idea, and it seems every single person on the planet thinks it's a bad idea. That's when a person can feel like an island. When you first express this idea, nobody agrees. There are two reasons for this. 1) It really is a bad idea and everyone can see that. Or 2) it is a good idea, and no one else has the foresight to see just how good it can be. A lot of ideas, both bad and good, are tossed aside at this point, because the person with the idea loses faith.
This is the point I'm at in my life right now. I have an idea of what I want to do to earn a living, and absolutely no one thinks it's a good idea... yet. For quite a while now, I've been struggling with a variety of issues, medical and otherwise, and trying to find a way to earn a living in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina. I'll admit, I look terrible on paper. My last ten years is a series of taxi driving jobs in both California and North Carolina, not one of which has the records to prove I actually worked for them. In addition, there are big gaps in my employment. On top of that, people tend to think that taxi drivers can only drive, and they tend to simply go on to the next resume' when I apply for a "normal" job. For years now, I've been trying to dumb myself down just to get an entry level job... ANY job. At that same time, I was blogging and self-educating myself about the internet and the world of "new media." There are VERY few businesses around here who use new media channels very well. Businesses have websites and Facebook pages, and maybe even a Twitter stream, but they don't use these channels to their full potential. So with everything I've learned over the last several years, it became clear that my best chance of making a living would be to create my own job, not get one that already exists. Of course, to everyone else, and I mean ABSOLUTELY everyone I know right now, it just looks like I'm lazy.
On a church trip the other day, one of the old guys I know brought up a new restaurant being built in town, it's called Dairy-O. It's going to be something like a Dairy Queen or maybe even a Sonic. It's being built on a major road right next to a Wendy's. The man went on to say that Dairy-O will take a lot of business from that Wendy's, because it takes FOREVER to get waited on at that particular Wendy's. He's right. Everyone listening to the conversation agreed. The man said he talked to the manager of that Wendy's about why it takes so long to get served, and the manager said that he can't find good employees. When he hires a young person to work there, they simply don't want to work hard. I chimed in at that point. I told him that that particular Wendy's was the only place in town that actually called me for an interview. The assistant manager who interviewed me seemed interested in hiring me, in part because I had three years of restaurant experience earlier in my life. But she had reservations about my weight, which she hinted at. She seemed to think that I wouldn't be able to stand for a whole shift. When I called back a week later, as she told me to, she said they had hired someone else and didn't need me. The Wendy's that says it "can't find good people," wouldn't hire me. I was a really good employee at every restaurant I worked at. Maybe, just maybe, the management of that particular Wendy's doesn't know good people when they see them.
In any case, after a long time of trying to dumb myself down to find an entry level job here, I've decided to do just the opposite. I'm going to stretch myself and my particular talents by giving workshops to people who want to find their passion in life. Yes, that sounds crazy. But I've given these workshops 25 years ago for friends and family members, and they were helpful to everyone who went through the workshop. So here I am, dusting off an old idea, and running with it. And every single person I know thinks I'm crazy right now. My mom just walked by and asked if I was blogging as I typed that last sentence. When I said, "Yes," she replied, "it's nice you have nothing to do." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In today's world, blogging can be work. This IS my job. This is the 21st Century, most of the factories have closed down and moved to other countries. As marketing expert has put it, "the time when people get paid above average wages for average work is over." Many other jobs have been taken over by robots doing the work humans once did. Creating and working with ideas and knowledge IS the work these days. Giving thoughts and ideas away through blogging or Facebook or Twitter or You Tube IS part of the work in today's world. It isn't work for everyone, but it is for a lot of people. No one I know around here understands this. But then, no one I know reads the books I read, listens to all the talks online that I listen to, or delves into the "new media channels" that are changing the way we communicate and how business gets done these days. No one else sees the opportunities I see right now. I'm an island at the moment. But that's OK. Unlike most people, I've been in this position before.
In the early 1980's, I started racing and then doing tricks on a little bike in Boise, Idaho. Everyone I knew thought I was crazy. Two years later I was working at the top BMX magazines in the country. A year later I was working at a video company producing the first alternative sports TV shows. A few years after that I was working on the stage crew of American Gladiators, one of the highest rated TV shows at that time. The BMX thing worked out pretty well for me and for a lot of other people I know. What I'm doing now might work out, too.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Thought for the day from Johnny Depp
Thought for the day. I just saw this on Facebook.
"One day the people that didn't believe in you will tell everyone how they met you."
-Johnny Depp
"One day the people that didn't believe in you will tell everyone how they met you."
-Johnny Depp
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
One Of The Most Amazing People You've Never Heard Of
I've met a lot of really amazing people in my life, people who excelled at riding bikes, riding skateboards, making TV shows, making music, and other talents. I've also come across stories of people who just plain blow my mind. Peace Pilgrim was one of those people. On the surface, she seems like some crazy old lady. But the more I learned about her, the more amazing she seemed.
Late in her life, in 1953, she decided to dedicate her life to teaching people about peace; peace among nations, peace among groups, peace among individuals, and inner peace. Nothing too amazing there. There are plenty of people who think peace is important. What sets Peace Pilgrim apart from anyone else is how she went about teaching people about peace. She dropped her given name, took on the name Peace Pilgrim, and decided to walk across the U.S. as a pilgrim, teaching people she met about peace wherever she went. Here's where it gets amazing. She had no support crew of any kind. She had no backpack. She HAD NO COAT. She had only the clothes she wore, the pair of shoes she wore, and a tunic that said Peace Pilgrim on the front, and "walking 25,000 miles for peace" on the back. She started her pilgrimage in 1953. She walked until given shelter and fasted until given food. Read that last sentence again. Her journey was a complete leap of faith. She slept wherever she wound up each night, though usually she was offered a place for the night. If no one offered her food, she didn't eat. Period. She walked from 1953 until her death in 1982. No supplies. No support crew. No coat. She walked in all 50 states. She walked well over 50,000 miles. She would often walk fifty miles in a day, in her late years in life, frustrating people who tried to walk along with her for a day.
People she met bought her clothes and shoes and let her borrow a typewriter to write, or stamps to mail letters. She usually turned down offers of shoes and clothes, until those items were absolutely necessary. Over the years, she gave many talks and interviews to a wide variety of groups, and a group developed, called Friends of Peace Pilgrim, to spread her message worldwide through pamphlets, videos, a book, and ultimately the documentary above. She gained the respect of prominent people around the world for her work, despite doing absolutely no promotion of her own. She even got detained by the FBI in the early years of her pilgrimage, because they thought she might be a Communist or something.
Nearly everyone in my new Facebook group knows people that have done amazing physical feats over the years. But there are other people in the world, both now and in the past, that have achieved things on a whole different level. Peace Pilgrim is one of those people. If this blog post has piqued your interest, watch the documentary above or check out the Friends of Peace Pilgrim website. I highly recommend that everyone reads her pamphlet, Steps Toward Inner Peace. It's available to read on the website, or you can order the pamphlets for free. Friends of Peace Pilgrim does accept donations to cover the costs of providing books and pamphlets around the world for free.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
An Easy Way To Start Setting Goals
This simple technique goes back to when I was in high school. The summer after my junior year, a friend helped me get a job at the Boise Fun Spot, a tiny amusement park located near downtown Boise, Idaho, in Julia Davis Park. The Fun Spot had three kiddie rides, a kiddie roller coaster, a Tilt-O-Whirl, a Ferris Wheel, a miniature golf course, and a snack stand. Basically, parents with small children would bring their kids there in the summer to let them ride some cheap rides and blow off steam. A month into working there, for the incredible wage of $2.05 an hour, I was dubbed assistant manager. That meant I ran the park on the manager's day off. A month after that, my friend Doug, the manager, found a construction job, and another 17-year-old and me became co-managers. The next summer, I was the sole manager. Yes, I ran an amusement park, at age 17. With that, of course, came responsibility. The manager before me showed me his technique for dealing with the responsibility.
Each morning, we'd get there a little bit early, get a Pepsi from the machine, and sit under the tree outside planning the day. He folded up a piece of notebook paper, wrote Stuff To Do on the top, and listed the things that needed to get done that day, such as mowing a section of the big lawn, putting pine tar on the Ferris Wheel cable, or weeding the flower beds in the miniature golf course. When I took over, I started making my own list, which soon became my "Stufftado" list. In essence, it's a series of goals that need to be accomplished that day. You know what's weird. If you start using a list like this, it soon becomes fun to scratch things off the list. The prior manager also told me to put at least one or two easy things on the list, like "going to the bathroom," or "getting a Pepsi and writing my stufftado list." Why? Because then you get to immediately check a couple of things off the list, and there's a small sense of accomplishment in doing that.
When I started getting my act together a few months ago, after a couple years on medication that pretty much turned me into a zombie, I started making my Stufftado list each morning. At first, I had only a few simple things on it, and a rarely checked them all off. But it was a start. Now I look forward to making my list each morning, and I've started making a Stufftado Big List for each week, with goals I need to accomplish in that week. It's a natural progression, and it gets me psyched to get something done that day.
So... what's on your Stufftado list for today?
Each morning, we'd get there a little bit early, get a Pepsi from the machine, and sit under the tree outside planning the day. He folded up a piece of notebook paper, wrote Stuff To Do on the top, and listed the things that needed to get done that day, such as mowing a section of the big lawn, putting pine tar on the Ferris Wheel cable, or weeding the flower beds in the miniature golf course. When I took over, I started making my own list, which soon became my "Stufftado" list. In essence, it's a series of goals that need to be accomplished that day. You know what's weird. If you start using a list like this, it soon becomes fun to scratch things off the list. The prior manager also told me to put at least one or two easy things on the list, like "going to the bathroom," or "getting a Pepsi and writing my stufftado list." Why? Because then you get to immediately check a couple of things off the list, and there's a small sense of accomplishment in doing that.
When I started getting my act together a few months ago, after a couple years on medication that pretty much turned me into a zombie, I started making my Stufftado list each morning. At first, I had only a few simple things on it, and a rarely checked them all off. But it was a start. Now I look forward to making my list each morning, and I've started making a Stufftado Big List for each week, with goals I need to accomplish in that week. It's a natural progression, and it gets me psyched to get something done that day.
So... what's on your Stufftado list for today?
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
A couple of thoughts about goals
As a kid, I wondered what made rich and famous people different from the people I grew up with moving from town to town in Ohio. Why were some people making lots of money as actors, for example, something they actually seemed to enjoy doing? Meanwhile, the adults I knew worked jobs that most of them didn't like all that well. What was the difference?
The main difference, I found out over time, was goals. The people who set themselves apart from the crowd set bigger goals, and then worked to achieve those goals. I also learned, over many years, that there's a fine art to setting goals. Some people (like comedian/TV and radio host Steve Harvey) say you need to have HUGE dreams, and then break those dreams down into a whole bunch of small, manageable steps. Then you make each step a goal. "Inch by inch, everything's a cinch," is one of Harvey's mantras.
But in my decades as a BMX freestyler, I saw lots of riders set short term goals that they didn't even thing of as goals. For people in the action sports world, a goal is more like, "Man, I want to learn this trick." But most of them didn't set HUGE lifetime goals. By setting short term goals, usually without even realizing they were setting goals, these people opened themselves up to new possibilities. This brand of thinking carried over when some of these people started their own businesses. They made things up as they went along, breaking new ground as they went. Some of these people, like Spike Jonze and the Jackass crew, Travis Pastrana and the Nitro Circus crew, Steve Rocco with World Industries, and Pierre Andre Senizergues with Sole Technology created empires, sort of by accident.
No matter which way you do it, setting and working towards goals moves you into a different realm then the average "working Joe" (or Jane). So... do you regularly set goals for yourself? Are you working towards some goal right now?
The main difference, I found out over time, was goals. The people who set themselves apart from the crowd set bigger goals, and then worked to achieve those goals. I also learned, over many years, that there's a fine art to setting goals. Some people (like comedian/TV and radio host Steve Harvey) say you need to have HUGE dreams, and then break those dreams down into a whole bunch of small, manageable steps. Then you make each step a goal. "Inch by inch, everything's a cinch," is one of Harvey's mantras.
But in my decades as a BMX freestyler, I saw lots of riders set short term goals that they didn't even thing of as goals. For people in the action sports world, a goal is more like, "Man, I want to learn this trick." But most of them didn't set HUGE lifetime goals. By setting short term goals, usually without even realizing they were setting goals, these people opened themselves up to new possibilities. This brand of thinking carried over when some of these people started their own businesses. They made things up as they went along, breaking new ground as they went. Some of these people, like Spike Jonze and the Jackass crew, Travis Pastrana and the Nitro Circus crew, Steve Rocco with World Industries, and Pierre Andre Senizergues with Sole Technology created empires, sort of by accident.
No matter which way you do it, setting and working towards goals moves you into a different realm then the average "working Joe" (or Jane). So... do you regularly set goals for yourself? Are you working towards some goal right now?
Monday, September 7, 2015
How Fast Do You Drive Your Lamborghini
The clip above is a test of a Lamborghini Aventador, and the reviewer hits 200 mph on a two mile long runway. Then the professional driver gets in and pushes it a bit higher. So... how fast do you drive your Lamborghini?
Most of you are thinking... "Lamborghini? What Lamborghini?" I doubt anyone reading this actually owns a Lamborghini, or any other car that can go 200 miles per hour. But what if you got the chance to drive the Lamborghini in the clip above? How fast would you go? My guess is that you'd want to get as close to 200 mph as you possibly could. Right? For those of you who are Nascar fans, the same goes if you got a chance to drive a race car. You'd want to get as close to top speed as possible. Right?
The reason I'm bringing this up harks back to something I heard as a kid. In the early 1970's, when I was a little kid, my dad read a magazine article that said that humans only use two to three percent of our brains. My dad told me this, and we wondered what would be possible if we could use our whole brains. If you look on Wikipedia, there's a page devoted to the "ten percent brain myth." According to this article, the idea that we only use ten percent of our brains (or a similar small percentage) goes back to the late 1800's. The article goes on to say that we actually use all of our brains, but certain parts of the brain are more active during various activities. The article also says that some people believe that if we could tap into a higher percentage of our brains' potential, that we'd be able to do amazing things, maybe even ESP. The Wikipedia article then says that ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) has never been proven. Actually the Wikipedia article is wrong on this count. If you look into the work of Ingo Swann, and Joe McMoneagle (among others), you will find that some ESP abilities have been proven in clinical conditions. Both Joe and Ingo were part of the U.S. government's remote viewing program that was in operation from about 1974 to 1994. But this post isn't about ESP. It's about realizing our own potential in our lives.
The truth is, no one really knows just what the human brain, or the human organism, is really capable of. But there are examples all around us of people who have used a greater part of their potential than most of us do. In the business world, we see lots of self-made millionaires and billionaires in a world where a huge percentage of the population lives in poverty. We see talented people in music and all the arts that connect with us on many levels. We also have a handful of people throughout history who have shown seemingly impossible abilities. Ghandi and Martin Luther King, among others, led social movements that continue to affect and inspire people. Mother Teresa and Peace Pilgrim, and most of the Catholic saints, lived humble lives that impacted and inspired people long after their deaths. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of the martial art of Aikido, was said to have done things that make him seem like a real-life Yoda. Then we have the founders of the great religions, like Jesus of Nazareth, the Buddha, and Mohammed, all of whom influence millions, even billions of people, centuries after their deaths.
All of these people lived as human beings on this Earth. Were they born with super powers? In the case of the religious founders, the answer was probably "yes." But what about all the other people doing amazing things in this world. Were they born super humans? No. Somehow they found ways to use a much higher percentage of their potential than the average person does. If we only use two or three percent of our potential, then that's like driving a Lamborghini (or a Nascar car) at six to eight miles per hour, instead of 200 mph. It we use ten percent of our potential, then that's like driving 20 mph instead of 200 mph. Let's face it, most of us are driving our human vehicles in first gear with the clutch most of the way in. Is that all you got? Really? So...my question still stands. How fast do you WANT to drive your Lamborghini?
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Seat Belts
Today's thought is stolen from a BMX zine I read in the early 90's. I can't remember what zine it was. It might have been Backdoor zine out of western Canada, I'm not sure. Now, I know some of you reading this have no idea what a zine is. First, a zine is small, self-published booklet, usually about a single topic. Second, it's pronounced zeen, as in magazine. I put the video above in to give you a better idea of what a zine is. Zines were a whole self-publishing subculture from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, before websites and blogs came along. It just occurred to me this morning that this month is my 30th anniversary of self-publishing. That's pretty cool. But it has nothing to do with today's subject.
In a BMX zine in the early 90's, there was a small article titled "Seat Belts." The idea was about pot smokers. If you've known any serious pot smokers in your life, you'll relate to this idea. I haven't smoked since I was right out of high school, but I've had plenty of roommates who did over the years. Back in those days, when someone bought weed, there were seeds in it. So before they got to smoking, they had to spread the weed out, often on a record album (remember those?) and they picked the seeds out. Why? Because the seeds would explode if you tried to smoke them. At least, I think that was the reason. The writer of that zine article posed the theory that some of those marijuana seeds dropped into the creases in the couch, and they grew into invisible seat belts. Once you started smoking, those invisible seat belts would hold you to the couch, and keep you from doing anything worthwhile in life. Let's face it, watching 12 episodes of Saved By The Bell is not a productive way to spend your time, no matter how hot you though Tiffany Amber Thiesen was.
Now, most of you reading this don't smoke pot (as far as I know), but some of you can relate to the gravity that your couch has. After a long day, it's easy to sit on the couch, put on those invisible seat belts, and stay strapped to the couch for much of the evening. Done any binge TV watching of your favorite show lately? You know what I'm talking about. I admit, I'm probably the biggest abuser of couch seat belts of any of us.
Now, there's nothing wrong with a little R&R on the couch. But spending too much time on the couch keeps you from doing things that are more productive. In the 90's, for me and my friends, this meant watching TV instead of riding our bikes. In today's world, it may mean sitting down with a beer or glass of wine and not doing those little things that really mean a lot to you. Whether it's not working overtime to pay for that trip you've always wanted to take. Or maybe spending time on a hobby you really enjoy. Or maybe, it's starting your own small business. Whatever the case, once those invisible seat belts on the couch get fastened, you're out of commission for the evening. So ask yourself, "Am I wearing those seat belts right now? Or am I spending my time doing something more worthwhile?"
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