Category: Big Thoughts

Giving Up? Steve Jobs Would Never Give Up! (Except for the times he did)

“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” – Animal House

DSC03299

The Boy prepares to defend Houston from The Hun.

You never know when you’re going to find opportunity.  A while back, The Mrs. got invited to a dinner by her graduate advisor with the other grad school students.  The professor and her husband owned a little cottage on a lake, and he owned a sailboat.  He asked if anyone wanted to go sailing.  I had never been sailing (and, to date, this is my only sailing trip).  My hand shot up.  I assumed that we would perhaps lay claim to a nearby cottage and maybe engage in some light pillaging.  Sadly, it was only sailing.  He looked askance at me when I had a full Viking regalia and torch (you only get to 80% pillage without the torch) that I brought for the trip.

I choked down the bitter disappointment and not going on a raid, but decided to go on the sailing trip anyway.  He took us out on the lake.  Making small talk, I asked what he did (since he was obviously not a proper Viking).  “I have an advertising agency.”

I pressed further, asking details of how it worked and how he liked doing it and if he liked drinking the blood of his enemies while listening to the lamentation of their women.  He said that was what they did in the 1950’s.  I finally asked, “When did you open your ad agency?”

I’ve always been fascinated to understand that spark – that moment when people toss off their day jobs and decide to open their own place.

Him:  “It was 1976.”

Me:  “Wasn’t that in the middle of recessions, plus all the inflation?”

Him:  “Yup.  Stupid thing to do, right?”  He said as he piloted his sailboat back toward his private dock by his cottage.

Duh.  Obviously it was stupid.  Why else didn’t he have a yacht and a private island?

And it’s easy to second-guess people who have great ideas and push for them to succeed.  But flaming messes like Enron® aside, we mainly look at the companies that survived and think, “Wow!  Those guys are so smart – they did everything right.”

enron

Hey, a stock I didn’t lose money in!  But I wish I could have been the guy to raid the burning building and hear the lamentation of their women.

We look at the survivors and judge their actions based upon their outcomes.  Even geniuses (Steve Jobs was one) get it wrong – his board of directors had to fire him to put him into a place where he could make the biggest business comeback in history, plus redefine at least two consumer product lines, nearly singlehandedly.

But he messed things up, too.  Jobs dumped all his Apple® stock when he got fired.  Oh, did I mention he hired the guy that got him fired?  And NeXT® computers were awesome, but no one wanted to spend $10,000 (1990 cash) to buy them.  And the Apple© Lisa™.  And the MacCube®.  And a whole bunch of other stuff that didn’t work out.

But the ideas that he had that survived were worth over a trillion dollars.

The pattern that I keep seeing is that people who are successful don’t try just one idea and give up, they try lots of different ideas and the ones that work are kept, and the ones that don’t are thrown out.

What we look at when we see success doesn’t show the failure that success is built on.

You never know when you’re going to find opportunity.  And you won’t find opportunity unless you try.  And try.  And try.

The Germans will NEVER TAKE PEARL HARBOR!

bluto

Memorial Day and Memento Mori

“Ron’s sudden death was the catalyst for everything.  Deborah told me later that it had been like a wake-up call for her.  What people used to call the Memento Mori.  Ron’s massive coronary had reminded her that life was just too short to waste any chance of true happiness.” – Men Who Stare At Goats

vanitas

Philippe de Champaigne’s picture “Vanitas”, which was a Memento Mori – inspired picture – the fleeting life symbolized by the flower, death by the skull, and the amount of time until the casserole comes out of the oven symbolized by the hourglass.

Memorial Day in the United States is meant to commemorate soldiers who died on active duty for the United States armed forces.  The total number of dead is about 1 million, although many families use Memorial Day to remember their dead relatives as well, bringing flowers to graves.

It’s also an appropriate time to bring up the concept of Memento Mori.  Memento Mori is Latin for “remember death” – which is an admonition to, well, remember death.  And this isn’t just about your relatives that have passed on, and not just for the soldiers that died.  No, this is also a time to reflect on your own death.

And why should we reflect and remember death?

To start with, this is something that isn’t new.  Seneca, the Roman stoic philosopher, said:  “No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.  Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.”  Throughout the middle ages, the phrase Memento Mori was the lolcat meme of the day, if we put lolcat memes on tombs.

Reflect on death – if you knew that you wouldn’t wake up ever again, what would you do with your remaining hours?  This reflection on death has multiple values to you and your character:

  • It reinforces that which is important to us, here today.
  • It exposes the frivolous that consume too much of our time.
  • It shows what’s really of value – the money you made will be less important than the lives you’ve changed.
  • You don’t have to worry about returning that library book.

All too often we think too little of those who sacrificed all for us.  All too often we think too little of how we are spending (or squandering) our own lives.

So, on Memorial Day, by all means salute those who reluctantly laid down their lives for freedom.  Spend time in remembrance of relatives who have passed on.  And work to understand what is really important in your life.

Besides PEZ®, I mean.

Sleep Apnea, CPAP, and how the Medical Mafia is Killing You

“Did I never tell you? I suffer from sleep apnea.  That’s why I had to bring this guy with me. My CPAP machine.”

“Oh, my God.  Did you just rent that so you could have your own bed?” – The League

apnea

So, to demonstrate how sleep apnea occurs, I cut a cartoon cadaver in half.  It’s messier than it sounds – ink went everywhere.    Fortunately I had lots of ACME towels to sop it up.  But then the towels exploded.

It looks like this cadaver died from being shot in the mouth with blue arrows.

Recently, The Mrs. sat me down and said that she was worried that I might be snoring . . . a bit too hard.  I disagree – I assured her that I had never heard myself snore, so she must certainly be in error.  Especially when she indicated that the snoring had, on several occasions, triggered tsunami alerts in Hawaii, and we live firmly in flyover central northern Upper South Midwestia.

I started doing some research.  Snoring’s not dangerous, right?

No.  Snoring can be deadly.  Very deadly.  Like 40,000 deaths a year in the United States (at least).  That’s more people than Rosie O’Donnell drives to suicide monthly.  Wow!

How does snoring kill you?

Cardiovascular disease.  Car accidents.  High blood pressure.

Huh?

Turns out that snoring, especially loud snoring, is a sign of sleep apnea.  Sleep apnea is where the “sleeper” periodically stops breathing for 10-60 seconds, up to 80 times per hour.  This, in turn (simply, neither of us are going to med school) causes a plethora of piñatas problems.  Increased carbon dioxide causes parts of your brain to die.  It also causes your heart to freak out, and beat harder and faster to get more blood moving.  It may even lead to shots of adrenaline that keep you from sleeping soundly.

The end result is you’re tired, all the time.

Your heart is getting stressed out, every night.

You are getting (subconsciously) stressed each night as you periodically are suffocated.  By yourself.

The causes of sleep apnea are fairly common.  Be an aging dude, be overweight.  Have allergies.  Have a thick, football player neck.  In turn, this leads to more weight gain, daytime sleepiness, heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents from drowsy drivers.

So, you’re saying, “John Wilder, you’ve convince me that this can kill me.  What on earth can I do about it?”

I’m so glad you’ve asked.

Give up drinking, smoking.  Lose weight.  Sleep on your side.

See the problem?  Drinking is certainly possible to give up, but why would you want to?  (I mean besides all the documented health benefits).  Losing weight is hard enough, but sleep apnea actually changes your body chemistry so it’s harder to lose weight.

What’s the solution?

CPAP.  (I’ve most often heard people pronounce this as “see-pap” as in “See Pap’s eyes as he has another heart attack???”)  The symptoms (including snoring) that you might need CPAP are being drowsy during the daytime, drowsy driving during the daytime, nodding off after Thanksgiving Dinner, and generally being able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat.  I thought I had a skill – I could fall asleep anywhere, anytime, generally in thirty seconds or so.  It turns out that it might just have been sleep apnea, curable by CPAP.

CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Air Pressure, and not Constant Peer Alcohol Provision, as one might think.  Uncharacteristically, it is one of the three things invented by Australians that don’t involve alcohol, marsupials, or Australian Rules Football.

aussiefb

Back when ESPN® was good, it would show Australian Rules Football at 1AM.  All the guys on my high school football team watched it, mainly because the referees were so . . . amazing. 

As I was saying, Dr. Colin Sullivan, AC/DC fan and uncle of Angus Young (I made that up to make him more interesting) was a guy who treated people with sleep apnea.  At that time, the prevailing treatment method was a tracheotomy.  Yes.  They would cut a hole in your throat to stop the apnea.

So, Dr. Sullivan figured that there had to be a better way, even if it was less cool than slitting the throats of his patients.  He experimented with dogs (dingoes, maybe?) and must have found a group that snored but that didn’t drag off babies.  Here was the first CPAP.

After he got it to work with a patient whose throat he was going to cut open.  He put that first CPAP on the patient, and the patient had seven great hours of sleep in the first time since forever.  Unlike throat slitting, this was a medical procedure with no significant adverse side effects.  None.  Sadly, Dr. Sullivan deprived thousands of doctors of the joy of cutting open patients as the first commercial CPAP machines went on the market in 1985.

Now the crazy facts:

  • 22 million Americans are probably suffering from some degree of sleep apnea.
  • Machines are relatively inexpensive, with many costing less than $350.
  • Only 10% or so of sleep apnea sufferers have machines.
  • Sleep studies (required for the prescription of this harmless but helpful machine) cost between $600 and $5,000.
  • 40,000 Americans a year die from sleep apnea.
  • John Candy died from complications related to sleep apnea.
  • William Shatner has sleep apnea.

The facts speak for themselves.  Lifesaving technology is being kept hostage to gatekeepers that could be replaced by software or a cellphone app at very low cost?  Where have we seen this before?  If we let Silicon Valley “disrupt” sleep apnea treatments we’d probably have machines costing less than a $100, since your cell phone would become the machine brain and the data would be uploaded to some cloud site and analyzed and tweaked in real time to provide even better performance and better apnea control (hint: as a business idea).  Heck, it could even provide a real-time alarm if it saw actual life threatening patterns developing.

Oh, yeah, when I wrote about optometrists (LINK).  There’s a low-cost way to get a very accurate (I can attest) prescription.  But they want to scare you.  As would anyone who saw a lucrative meal ticket floating away.  Such as anyone who does sleep studies.  These are gatekeepers that server a very limited role in society today – their skills can be replaced inexpensively by technology.

I talked to someone I know from work (he doesn’t work at the same place as I do, but we talk frequently.  I asked him if he had ever used a CPAP.

“Man, that’s the best thing ever.  I love it.  I have been using it for years.  If you travel you will forget your toothbrush, your underwear, your deodorant, but you will never forget your CPAP.”

John Wilder:  “How was the sleep study?”

Him:  “Sleep study?  Didn’t get one.  Just ordered one off of my dad’s prescription.”

He described a fairly tough few days getting adjusted to the machine.

“But the first day you sleep through the night?  Oh, man.  You feel like you’re sixteen again.  Energy!  I woke up after four hours – more refreshed than I’d been in years.  I love it.”

As for me?  I think this system where you have to pay an artificial gatekeeper for proven, safe technology is immoral and strangles market competition and innovation.  And, as the facts would say, also fattening.  Quite literally, this market manipulation to serve a few medical professionals kills thousands of people a year, but since they have nice jobs and serve on the PTA nobody recognizes them for the killers they are – more efficient than organized crime.  More deadly than gun violence.

And the people in Hawaii are probably getting tired of the tsunami warnings, what with the volcano, they have enough on their hands.  They should take up a collection for a sleep study for me . . . or in a sane world, I’d just walk down to the store and buy a CPAP.

But the Sleep Mafia won’t let me . . . .

Repeat to yourself:  John Wilder is NOT a doctor.  Do NOT take medical advice from humor bloggers on the Internet.

Ben Franklin and his Thirteen Virtues

“Only one man in the colonies has a printing press fine enough to make these.  Our good friend Ben Franklin!”

“Uh-oh. Isn’t Franklin in Philadelphia?

“When he’s not in Charlotte or Marybelle or Louisa.” – Futurama

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My friend sent me this picture of Prince and Princess PEZ®.  Because when this Royal® Wedding© is long forgotten?  My precious PEZ™ will still be strong!

(I tried to come up with a picture of a Benjamin Franklin PEZ™ dispenser.  No results.  But if you do a search on “Benjamin Franklin PEZ©” an embarrassing number of the images from this blog show up.)

Ben Franklin, at the age of 20, put together a list of 13 virtues.  He decided that he’d try to live up to them daily.  He failed.  As would we all – we’re not angels.  But, over time, he improved.  The results?  In today’s world, he’d be one of the most acclaimed physicists (electricity was a big thing back then), richest businessmen ($10-$15 billion, yes billion in today’s dollars), popular authors (his books were bestsellers), statesmen (he brought France into the Revolution on our side, and negotiated the peace treaty that ended the war), and he was an inventor – refrigeration theory, bifocals, lightning rods, swim fins, and a much improved stove.

Yeah.  Pretty much everyone on Earth today isn’t fit to butter his pancakes.  Sure, that sounds tame today, but in 1760 that meant something scandalous!  His accomplishments outshine almost everyone today.  With the exception of Brian May, guitarist from Queen®, who also holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics.

Anyway, Franklin put the lists of virtues down in his biography.  Here’s a sample page:

bensvirtues

Notice he didn’t include Chastity in places where he’d violated his virtues??  Hmm?

I’ve decided that old me can always learn from Young Franklin, so I’ll (maybe) update you on my progress as I attempt to become more virtuous.  Why?  Because it’s never too late to get better.

So, here are the 13 Virtues of Ben Franklin (sounds like a romance novel, doesn’t it?):

  1. Temperance.

Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

Ben put this one first.  If you listen to later stories, it’s obvious that Mr. Franklin really did like to drink.  And did drink.

But he understood it well:

’Tis an old Remark, that Vice always endeavours to assume the Appearance of Virtue: Thus Covetousness calls itself Prudence; Prodigality would be thought Generosity; and so of others. This perhaps arises hence, that, Mankind naturally and universally approve Virtue in their Hearts, and detest Vice; and therefore, whenever thro’ Temptation they fall into a Practice of the latter, they would if possible conceal it from themselves as well as others, under some other Name than that which properly belongs to it.

But Drunkenness is a very unfortunate Vice in this respect. It bears no kind of Similitude with any sort of Virtue, from which it might possibly borrow a Name; and is therefore reduc’d to the wretched Necessity of being express’d by distant round-about Phrases, and of perpetually varying those Phrases, as often as they come to be well understood to signify plainly that a Man is drunk.

Tho’ every one may possibly recollect a Dozen at least of the Expressions us’d on this Occasion, yet I think no one who has not much frequented Taverns would imagine the number of them so great as it really is. It may therefore surprize as well as divert the sober Reader, to have the Sight of a new Piece, lately communicated to me, entitled The Drinker’s Dictionary.

In The Drinker’s Dictionary (LINK) Franklin listed 228 phrases to say that someone was  . . . drunk.  It amuses me (and pleases me) that the government has this on its servers.

Here’s a sample from the letter “C”:

  • He’s Cat,
  • Cagrin’d,
  • Capable,
  • Cramp’d,
  • Cherubimical,
  • Cherry Merry,
  • Wamble Crop’d,
  • Crack’d,
  • Concern’d,
  • Half Way to Concord,
  • Has taken a Chirriping-Glass,
  • Got Corns in his Head,
  • A Cup too much,
  • Coguy,
  • Copey,
  • He’s heat his Copper,
  • He’s Crocus,
  • Catch’d,
  • He cuts his Capers,
  • He’s been in the Cellar,
  • He’s in his Cups,
  • Non Compos,
  • Cock’d,
  • Curv’d,
  • Cut,
  • Chipper,
  • Chickery,
  • Loaded his Cart,
  • He’s been too free with the Creature,
  • Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap,
  • He’s Chap-fallen.

And that’s just drinking.  Franklin also had a pretty good appetite.  Around here we call drunk “too many Gorns for his cannon.”  Stupid Gorns.

By the time he was in France in 1883, he required four dudes to carry him around.

But the fact is that he did try to control himself.  And did, at least long enough to make your accomplishments (and mine, too) look like a four-year-old’s drawing of a car.

franklin snake

Franklin drew this.  Oh, yeah, he was a noted political cartoonist, whose legacy lives in our national symbols.

  1. Silence.

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 

As anyone who knew him would tell you – Franklin was a talker, and a leader.  But he learned . . . that he didn’t learn anything when he was talking.  He learned when he was listening.  He even formed a club that he called a “junto” dedicated to self-improvement.  By its nature, Franklin had to listen.  And learn.

This probably didn’t include chatting up the ladies, but did include not being an idiot, as quoted by him in Poor Richard’s Almanack:

“Silence is not always a sign of wisdom, but babbling is ever a mark of folly.”

But also from Poor Richard’s Almanack, you could see that Franklin had a hard time holding it back:

“Sloth and Silence are a Fool’s Virtues.”

Again, Franklin put his biggest vices at the top.

  1. Order.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Yeah, this one nearly toasted Franklin:

“Strangers who came to see him were amazed to behold papers of the greatest importance scattered in the most careless way over the table and floor.” (LINK)

Franklin had a lot of trouble with this virtue.  By all accounts he failed – and throughout his life he was a messy, messy guy.  Which was cool because he was a billionaire scientist.  Me?  I’d have hired people to fix up my stuff.  But . . . Ben probably wouldn’t have found that virtuous.

  1. Resolution.

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Franklin was pretty good about this one.  He managed to accomplish almost everything he set his mind to, which might have been his downfall for practicing the first three perfectly.

  1. Frugality.

Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

Franklin wrote a lot about frugality.  A lot.  Volumes.  “A stitch in time saves nine.”  “Close the door, you’re letting all the heat out – what are we, the Rockefellers?”

franklin hat

Franklin was so concerned about frugality that he regularly wore his cats as a hat, rather than spend money on buying a real hat. 

And his points were simple.  Be happy with what you have and you’re happy.  Don’t spend your money on worthless crap – save it or use it for your business instead.  But to get wealth you had to pair it with the next virtue:

  1. Industry.

Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

He coupled frugality with industry.  Work hard, save your money, and you will be wealthy.

In 1760 this might have worked, but I’ve seen a zillion people that work hard and don’t spend much money.  You have to have industry about things that matter.  Franklin was cheap, sure.  But Franklin also served thousands and thousands of people from the colonies.  He made his fortune not by spending less, not by working hard, but by spending less on crap and working hard on things that provided value to people.

And that’s still the road to fortune today.  Make people happy?  You make yourself rich.

  1. Sincerity.

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

It’s certain that Franklin had to shade the truth a bit in his role as a diplomat in France.  He most certainly had to say things that aren’t true.  And, it’s certain that he had . . . mistresses.  So, there was an older part of him that wasn’t quite so innocent.  Still – as advice goes – this one is golden.  Tell the truth.

  1. Justice.

Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

This version of justice is one I can get behind – you do justice by not hurting people, or, by not withholding what is your duty.  On a dark and stormy night, I will help someone.  By calling 911.  I’m totally not letting them into my secluded lakeside cottage so we have to fight after I figure out they’re evil killers.

  1. Moderation.

Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

John Adams and Ben Franklin were travelling with the Continental Congress and there were two rooms left for three travelers.  No this isn’t a joke – there were no priests or rabbis involved.  The Continental Congress could easily overwhelm a small colonial town’s hotel infrastructure, like Russell Crowe and his ego showing up at the same place and time.

Somehow (again, this sounds like a joke) Ben Franklin and John Adams got stuck with the same bed.  This is the same Ben Franklin that was a billionaire by today’s standards, stuck sharing a bed with a hayseed lawyer.  In a room slightly (slightly) larger than the bed.  With a window.  And no heating.  Adams walked into the room, and closed the window, sure he’d catch his death of cold.  Franklin walked over to the window and opened it wide, explaining how the cold air was much better for the body and health than being stuck in a suffocating room (with Adams).  Here is a description of the night from Adams:

“The Doctor then began an harrangue, upon Air and cold and Respiration and Perspiration, with which I was so much amused that I soon fell asleep, and left him and his Philosophy together.”

Adams and Franklin never really got along well together.  But if I were to guess – Ben regularly broke Rule Nine.  You can’t throw yourself into industry without avoiding moderation.

ben franklin electricity

Franklin flying a kite in the rainstorm is not a great example of moderation.  It might be closer to a mental problem?  Thankfully he has all of that underage labor to help him . . . .

  1. Cleanliness.

Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

As you can see from the previous virtue, Order, this didn’t mean that everything was put away – it meant that everything was clean.  And Franklin was big on being clean.  He regularly took baths.  Air baths.  He’d stand completely naked with the window open so he could get clean with the cold Philadelphia air.  It’s reasonable to think that Ben smelled better that most of his contemporaries.  And was cleaner.

But you don’t want to look in his window during his air bath . . . ewww.

  1. Tranquility.

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Ben picked this, because this wasn’t him.  At all.  He was a person who went for the jugular vein in any argument.  As noted above, he would lecture your for hours on his theories just to have the window the way he wanted it.  As a virtue – it’s an awesome one – stoic.  And we can see why Ben tried to make himself better.

  1. Chastity.

Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Ben earned a solid F on this virtue throughout his life.  There are some historians that count up to fifteen (15!) illegitimate children of Ben Franklin.  Fifteen!  He had more kids than an NFL® cornerback!

But he didn’t have a kid with every woman he had sex with.  He favored women past the age of menopause, so that translates to him having amorous adventures with LOTS of ladies.

  1. Humility.

Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin added this because, when speaking of pride he said:  “for even if could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

Jesus he picked clearly because of his attitude of service to humanity.  And Socrates?  Socrates felt he knew nothing.  Now Socrates also felt that, even though he knew nothing, the rest of Athens knew even less.  So, there’s humility, but the kind of humility that gets you some nice hemlock.

Despite his failures, Franklin’s pursuit of virtue made him better.  Had he not done that, perhaps he would have been known differently to history . . . .

drevil

 

Franklin, Planners, The Terminator, My Unlikely But Real Link With President Eisenhower, Star Wars, and Kanban

“No matter who you are, no matter where you came from, you too can become financially independent in just a matter of months.  All you need is strategy.” – Wolf of Wall Street

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Amazing how he keeps showing up, right?

For me, it started with lists.  Simple lists.  In high school, when the number of things I had to do was greater than seven or so, I’d put a list together.  It wasn’t really a plan, it was a way that I kept track of stuff I was supposed to do.  On at least one occasion I made a date with a girl and then forgot about it completely.  Poor girl, look at what she missed!  (Amazingly, that girl chased me around like a puppy for years after I stood her up . . . but that’s another post.)

In college I had to get strategic, really for the sake of survival.  My first semester, college work wasn’t at all hard.  I studied a few hours, and got fairly decent grades.  My next semester was not as friendly – Physics I, Calculus II and Chemistry II all had tests on the same week – all semester long.  As a mechanism of sanity I bought one of those huge paper desk calendars and put it on my desk – I took the class and test schedules and laid out the entire semester at the start of the semester.  It helped – now I knew when I would have to spend hours of studying – and it wouldn’t hit me by surprise.  It was also helpful for taking notes.  And for writing down Alice Cooper® lyrics when I was bored.

I can’t get a girl
‘Cause I ain’t got a car
I can’t get a car
‘Cause I ain’t got a job
I can’t get a job
‘Cause I ain’t got a car
So I’m looking for a girl with a job and a car
–Lost in America, Alice Cooper

Where the lists I used to make were just that, lists, the desk calendar was the basis of an entire strategy.  I could plan my day (and night) and beer consumption appropriately.  I could plan in advance, and when I got two weeks out, I could plan pretty accurately what I needed to do and study in order to pass.  It worked.

After graduating from college, the first place I worked handed out . . . a pad of lists.  This was just a simple list that you could fill out each morning to remember the things you had to do each day.  Hey!  I was back to high school.  The lists were handy.  I was shocked, shocked I say, to find out that my employer wanted me to work on lots of different things each day.  The lists were handy.  But I decided that I hadn’t had enough beer and decided to go back to grad school, and got back to my desk calendar.

After grad school I got another job.  On the first day I found on my desk a box of business cards, assorted pens, pencils and offices supplies, a new computer, and a Franklin® Planner, complete with a metal nametag with my name on it.

Talk about an awesome first day!

I opened the planner, and looked at the cool pages – it was as if my old lists had mated with my desk calendar and created a system to manage . . . everything.  I was in love.

There were two pages for each month – so I could do the strategic planning that had gotten me through college.  And a page for each day, so I could create a prioritized list of the work that I needed to get done.  Turns out that these were called Franklin© Planners because they were modeled off of Benjamin Franklin’s daily planner.  He’d write down what he had to do, do it, and then write down what he’d done during the day.

franklin day

Not a bad plan – especially since he did all this without electricity.  Oh, wait . . . he discovered it!  And bifocals.  And treaties with France.  And was a billionaire businessman.  Sigh.  I got to work without injuring myself.  Does that count?

I took very well to the Franklin© Planner.  It was awesome!  Give me enough pages and I’d have planned my own funeral.  Here’s an example of how you use it:

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In the immortal words of Ben Franklin (on a sober day) “If someone asks if you wouldst be Sarah Connor sayeth, nay, I thinkith she livith in another county, or maybe Canada.”

The Franklin© Planner allows you to plan and prioritize your day.  I’ve moved away from the A, B, C system.  I now rank things based on what quadrant they are in, rated by importance.  I think I stole the following concept from Stephen Covey (he wrote the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), but the idea is this – put your effort where it matters.  (True story:  Covey stole this from Dwight D. Eisenhower.  My grandmother was his grade school teacher.  Did my grandmother teach Ike about importance and urgency?)

quadrants

See how cool this is!  I took a $500 computer and made a drawing that looks like a 7 year old did it!  Bonus – who doesn’t like Comic Sans as a font?

This breaks most things that you do down into four different categories based upon if they are urgent (have to be done NOW!) and if they are important (HAVE to be done).  Obviously some things are (sort of) in the middle, but on a daily basis, you can put most things in one of the four boxes.

Not Urgent, Not Important.

The first quadrant is the bottom left quadrant – it’s not important, and it’s not urgent.

Why would you ever do it?  It’s like mowing the grass growing in the forest next to my house – sure I could let those hostages I have in the basement mow it, but then they’d just want more food, and I never go into the forest, anyway.  Because no one ever mows there.

Urgent, Not Important.

The next quadrant is stuff that’s urgent but not important.  You have to do this now.  But the world will go on if it doesn’t happen.  My suggestion is to ignore as much of this stuff as you can.  Sure, paying your taxes might not seem important, but don’t do it for a few years and see how excited the IRS gets.  So that’s probably important.  But good examples of urgent but not important?  Most phone calls you get at work.  I now screen 90% of my calls at work, and 100% of those whose number I don’t know.  Why interrupt my train of thought or work that’s important for a phone call?

Another great example of this would be emails.  Most of them don’t require an immediate response.  Save them up and hit them as a batch when you have time to focus on them.

Urgent, Important.

Ever have a boss who was a nervous wreck, who spasmed like an electrocuted spider monkey on meth when upper management said anything to him?  Yeah.  That’s what life is like when you spend your time in this quadrant.  By definition, the stuff is important.  By definition, you have to do it now.

Your life is a never ending crisis if all of your tasks are urgent and important.  Urgent and Important things WILL show up in your life.  If you can deal with them in a cool and collected manner when they do show up, well, you’re probably prepared because you’ve spent your life in the last quadrant:

Important, Not Urgent.

This is where you should spend your time – not in crisis-level activities, but in the planning and work that gets prepares you for success later.  You exercise to be strong for the wrestling match that will take place in two months – it’s not urgent but it’s important.  You save money now so you can buy a car with cash and not have to pay for interest.  Important . . . not urgent.

It’s not entirely possible to live a life free of drama (you will occasionally hit a deer, you will get sick, they will run out of raspberry PEZ® before the feast of St. Thanos) but you can reduce it if you plan ahead.

One other system I’ve used (with meh-level results) is Kanban.  Kanban was developed by an engineer at Toyota to allow collaborative work to take place in manufacturing.  Several consultants and bloggers online are absolutely effusive about it.  I’ve found (personally) it’s only good in motivating me when I’m not feeling enthused about what I’m doing at work.

It’s pretty simple – find a space, separate it into things you have to do, things you’re doing, and things you’ve gotten done.  Then fill in sticky notes with the tasks you have to perform.  Sort of like this:

20180515_185451 (1)

Something tells me he’ll be disappointed after finding out his DNA test results . . . .

Again, your results may vary, but it’s cheap to try.

I’ve personally also tried several electronic planners, and each time I’ve gone back to pen and paper.  For me, there’s something pretty useful about the book – it serves the purpose of planning my life, and I don’t take phone calls on it.  And I don’t write blog posts on it (though it does hold my blog topic schedule and notes for future topics).  It serves as a planning tool, and only as a planning tool.  The Mrs. refers to it as my “brain.”

There’s something about the crisp feel of a new page each day.  The smooth lines as the graphite of the pencil write down the activities that are planned.  The accomplishment of a check mark to show work well done.  Looking back on notes that you wrote a decade ago.

Dang.  I wonder if anyone let the dog out?  Or if anyone told Sarah that her Austrian friend was looking for her?

Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Mangos and A Future That Must Not Be

“Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years… Labor and food riots in Poland. Soviet troops invade… Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000. El Salvador and Honduras fall… Greens Party gains control of West German Parliament. Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil… Mexico plunged into revolution… “ – Red Dawn (1984)

Robespierre

Maximillian Robespierre, the guy who started it all . . .

On December 3, 1792, Maximillian Robespierre, a lawyer and French revolutionary, gave a speech about the fate of the King, Louis XVI.  Robespierre complained that he was totally against the death penalty in all cases, except this one.  He ended his speech:  “With regret I pronounce this fatal truth: Louis must die so that the nation may live.”

Eventually, it came to a vote on January 18, 1793 – Louis was convicted to die.  Two days later, Louis XVI, King of France, was executed.  But the precedent was huge.  A monarch could be arrested by his people and could be executed based on a public vote.

Who, then, was safe?

Robespierre and the leftist (this is where the name “leftist” comes from – the revolutionaries sat on the left side of the assembly before the revolution) government had a strong bent that advocated communes, and nothing less than the complete and total repudiation and remaking of all of French society.  Religion was abolished and replaced by “rationality” – the statues of Saints were actually guillotined.  Common measurements were replaced by the metric system (you see why I’m suspicious of it).  You could no longer refer to a man as “monsieur,” or a woman as “madame” – they were now simply, “citizen.”  Even the names of the months weren’t sufficiently revolutionary – they had to be replaced with new names, and each month would consist of three 10 day weeks.

The idea that replacement of all social norms would be difficult led to a simple solution:  kill anyone who opposes you.  Robespierre said:

If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the fatherland.

So, we’re killing you because it’s virtuous.  And boy, were the French virtuous!  The definition of a good revolutionary kept changing as the social norms of France kept changing.  Between June of 1793 and a year later (they were calling July “Thermidor” by then) nearly 17,000 had been executed because they were insufficiently committed to the revolution and the shifting definitions of a good revolutionary.

The last victim?  Robespierre himself.  He was executed on July 28, 1794, along with his 21 closest buddies.  When Napoleon Bonaparte took over a few years later – everyone was pretty happy when he called himself Emperor – it seemed far better than the tyranny of the leftists.

executerobespierre

Robespierre’s execution.  Looks festive!

But the French were amateurs when it comes terror.  For real downward death spirals, you have to get to the Russians and the Chinese . . .

LeninStalinMao

This might look familiar . . .

I blame Marx.  Marx was born some 200 years ago (as of this writing) and has been, in my opinion, the worst thing to happen to the world since they invented Spandex®.  Thankfully, Marx and Stalin never wore Spandex®, though rumor has it Mao wore it when he pretended to be Aquaman®.

After the Soviets finally took over Russia, for twenty years Stalin waged a purge against his own people in his attempt to create a perfect Marxist society.  People who had “a little more” – Kulaks, were killed, starved on purpose.  This was called the Holodomor, and killed between 4 million and 10 million of his own citizens.  Stalin’s totals?  During his lifetime it is likely that he was responsible for deaths (often brutal) of 15 million (low end) to 25 million (upper end).  And it came about from the same sort of internal purification that the French demanded – Stalin even compared himself to Robespierre on more than one occasion.  One story, popular during the day, was of a young Soviet boy, Pavlik Morozov, who supposedly denounced his father to authorities.  It was said that Pavlik was then killed by his family, who were then . . . executed.  Statues of Pavlik were erected everywhere.  His school was a shrine that students from across the Soviet Union would visit to see such a heroic boy.  Stalin himself was reported to have said, “What a little swine, denouncing his own father.”

pavlik

The heroic little swine.

For a great taste of what Soviet life must have been like during Stalin – have a read of an excerpt from a novel here (LINK).  It’s what leftism turns into over time, and the deaths are only a part of it – it’s the ultimate ripping apart of social and family structures that allow any sort of resistance to complete government control.  Stalin was excellent.

But if the French invented it and Stalin made use of it, Mao made a life of it.

maostalin

Mao, at a meeting to learn from the master . . . .

Mao was responsible for 40 to 80 million deaths during his lifetime.

And in Mao’s China, families were ripped apart, and the structure was ripped apart.  His “Hundred Flowers” campaign appeared to ask for other ways to govern China.  In reality, it was looking for anyone who disagreed with Mao, so they could be killed.  Mao’s cult reached its height of absurdity with Mao’s Mangoes.  Yes, you read that right – Mao’s Mangos.

mango

Pictured:  One of Mao’s Mangos.  Really.

In 1968, the minister from Pakistan gave Mao some mangoes.  Why?  We don’t know.  But Mao didn’t like mangos, so he split them up and sent them to various places (colleges, factories, government offices) and they exploded like a cultural grenade.  People wrote songs.  They formed up in lines to praise the mangos.  They made perfect replications of the mangos when the mangos began to rot.

How bad was it?  A dentist was executed when he said that the mango he saw “looked like a sweet potato.”

Executed.  And not for being a bad dentist.

Because he made a crack about a Pakistani fruit.

Posts occur to me sometimes because I had a thought that struck me as funny.  Or a memory I though it might be helpful to share.  Or an observation that might change a life.

In the last few weeks I’ve seen several editorials in several newspapers and magazines lionizing Marx and communism – some saying that his ideas are the ideas that will save the planet.  And I hear politicians and television announcers saying nearly the same words as Stalin or Lenin or Mao.  And I read that we need to give Marx another look.  I find particular horror in this failure to learn anything from history – as communism is a slow death – a death first of morals, and then of truth, and then of millions of citizens.

The verdict of history, by the numbers shows that no ideology ever, ever, has proven to provide more death to the people it governs than Marxism.  By any mechanism of objective judgement, it is by far the most reprehensible system of government ever created.  Nothing else is even close.

But we keep coming back to this idea – that others should take responsibility for us, and that we should create a society based on envy.  Thankfully the Marxist paradise of Venezuela, gifted with nearly limitless oil wealth shows that Marxism can work.  Oh, grinding poverty?  Malnutrition?  Immense corruption?  Guess the right people aren’t in charge.  It isn’t real communism.

Well, maybe someday if the Marxists kill enough people it will end up working . . . I bet they get it right in California – they’ll be there soon . . .

So you’ve hit bottom? Great news!

“Hitting bottom isn’t a weekend retreat.  It’s not a damn seminar.  Stop trying to control everything.” – Fight Club

American Dog Gothic

One of the oldest digital pictures on my computer.  I think these folks are from my mother’s side of the family . . . she said they were farmers.

There was a moment in time when it was almost . . . just too much.  My moment was at 10pm one night in March in the (now) distant past.  I had been up since 6am, and at 10pm was the first minute I had that was for me that day.

The day started early – I had to get my daughters up and ready for school – and then drop them off at the day care right as it opened at 7am (I’d made their lunches the night before).  Then, off to work.  Work lasted until 5:45pm, which was the last time I could leave and not miss the day care closing time, which was 6pm.  I was a manager, so work meant long hours.

I’d take my daughters shopping for groceries once a week.  The three of us ate for (generally) about $25 a week – which involved no eating out and quite a lot of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese® or Hamburger Helper™.  Lunches for the girls were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Pretty much daily.

After shopping?  Back to home to cook dinner, do dishes, and work on homework with the girls.  Then make sure they bathed and toss ‘em into bed while I did a load of laundry.

Then it was 10pm.  Me time.  On Saturdays I’d get up with the girls and make breakfast (either cereal or pancakes) and then fall asleep, exhausted, while they watched cartoons.

Financially, I was in debt – the most of my life.  I had a home payment, a car payment, a student loan payment, and a lot of credit card debt.  A lot.  Divorces are expensive.  Why are they expensive?  They’re worth it.  I mentioned the $100 food budget, but every dollar was spoken for.  I wanted to play rugby for the local team, but couldn’t.  There wasn’t enough money for both rugby club dues ($45?) and eating.  So, eating took priority.

I remember distinctly being flat on my back in bed – arms outstretched, staring at the ceiling fan.

I was at the bottom.  No money.  No time for anything.  And an endless stretch of days just to start digging myself out of the mess.

Again – I was at the bottom.  And I gave up.  How stupid was I to get in this situation.  I prayed.  “I can’t do this.  I need help.”

The next day, a check for exactly the amount required arrived in the mailbox – it was a rebate from AT&T – I was in some sort of long distance plan that gave me a rebate after so long.  And here it was.  I could play rugby.

But who would watch the girls?  Good friends (who I still owe!) would.

Every day after I hit bottom got better.  Every day.  It seems that when you’re at the bottom, every step, in any direction, is a way up and out.  Eventually I got enough money so we weren’t living close to the edge.

I got promoted at work.

I got raises.

I got in shape.

I met The Mrs. – at the exact time and place where I was a better guy, and the world was headed my way.

Eventually, I clawed my way out of debt.  And the lessons I learned walking out of the bottom of the pit, however slowly, are with me today.

When you’re at the bottom – the only way is up.  What can you pick up down there and bring back up with you?

Machiavelli, Business Advice, and You

“Among other evils that being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.  That’s Niccolò Machiavelli.  Now get!  I need to use your bathroom.” – The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

 MachiavelloHistorico

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT NOSE!  You could park a jet airliner under that thing!

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, better known to us today as simply Machiavelli, died in 1527.  I know, I know, these posts seem to be stuck in the 1500’s recently – but what better place to study the economic effects of an empire built on plundered gold (LINK), genetics of the amazingly inbred Hapsburgs (LINK) and now . . . political philosophy and business.

Machiavelli, besides having his name turned into a word for amoral behaviors used to get power (Machiavellian) was also a great-great-great-great-grandfather of Madonna, Cher, and Meatloaf which is why they use only one name.

I kid.

Machiavelli’s best known work is The Prince.  Reportedly, he wrote this political philosophy book for Lorenzo de’ Medici.  Niccolò had recently been fired from his job as a diplomat when he wrote The Prince, and back in 1516, being fired didn’t mean “here’s your crap and two weeks’ wages,” it meant, “we just might torture you and imprison you – just because.”  And Machiavelli was tortured by the Medici family – merely because they thought he might have once known a group of people who might have been plotting against Medici rule.

So what does Machiavelli do?  He writes an entire book and dedicates it to one member of the family that tortured him.  Yeah – I guess he missed that job he got fired from.

Note:  All quotes in this post are directly from The Prince.

The Prince has been written about a zillion times.  Heck, I had to write a paper on it when I was in college.  So what’s my take with this post?

Machiavelli wrote the book with an eye to a ruler in 16th Century Italy.  Does it have applicability in today’s business world?  Let’s see.  Yes.

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” 

I’ll mostly skip chapters 1-5.  Although there is some applicability, I’ll leave you with these notes:

Machiavelli writes about differing kinds of states – including conquered states.  His advice?  Kill off all of the old rulers after you take over a place.  I’ve seen this in business – one factory I knew about was bought by a new company.  Step one?  Fire all of the leadership.  Not some.  All.  Every department head except one was immediately fired and replaced.

To quote Niccolo:

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” 

So, if you think you’re not replaceable?  We replace our President every four or eight years.  A business can do without you.  And if you’re bought out?  Getting rid of the leadership is a great way to immediately change the culture of a company.  No mixed loyalties.

If a company or department was ruled by a tyrant, a new leader will find it pretty easy to start out in the department/division/company.  If the previous leader allowed or encouraged a large amount of autonomy and freedom?  You’re going to have problems.  This type of business might be a tough one to lead after you take it over.

“He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.” 

Chapter 6:  Conquest by Virtue

When looking at rising to the top, Machiavelli strongly favored doing it based on your own skill and cunning.  This type of power, he felt, was quite durable.  This is the company you built from the ground up – the company you bought with cash, the department manager role you won through years of hard work and dedication.

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” 

The major danger of this type of power was the idea that you could reform the system after conquering it.  It is difficult to do so:  the people who liked the old systems will fight hard to keep them – those that might benefit from the new system often won’t fight, since the benefits are in the future, and vague.  Machiavelli favored the use of force to make change happen.  And by force, Machiavelli meant swords and such.  Since running down the hallway cutting down poorly performing employees with swords might be a bad idea, you might want to consider firing them instead.

Chapter 7:  Conquest by Fortune

This is the power that you get when you’re appointed – you have powerful backers that want you to have the job/company.  Whereas when you take a business over due to virtue (above), here you have to make the people that put you into power happy, as well as deal with the people in the company or department.  If you’re lucky, and very, very good, you can keep the job after your father-in-law retires.  But it’s not likely.

“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.” 

Chapter 8:  Conquest by Criminal Virtue

If you’re going to take over a place via immoral means, Machiavelli says to do all of the evil up front.  If done completely enough, then you can (over time) make people forget your cruel and wicked actions over time.  The worst of all possible immoral takeovers is one where the cruelty and evil continue over time.

I don’t really recommend this, but we see it all of the time, and the people who do it are amazingly rich.

Hmmm, maybe I should consider evil?

“The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.” 

Chapter 15:  Reputation of A Prince

Machiavelli didn’t think much of the common man:

“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.” 

But that’s plain enough.  As a manager, what do you think your reputation should be?  Here, Niccolo cuts to the quick:

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” 

Ouch!

But he’s right.  If people love you, they can discount that feeling, especially at times when they feel joy.  But if they fear you?  They will be vigilant every minute of every day.  Fear is a much more potent motivator than love – just ask Maslow (LINK).

How does this apply at work?  Sadly, as a manager you have to remove yourself from the after work drinks.  You have to remove yourself from the “work parties.”  You have to be above and beyond that.  If you are just another person in the group?  Your authority means nothing.  And you have to use your authority – quickly and suddenly, but with complete justification every so often.  Why?  Because theory would say you should know more than your employees – at least occasionally.  Unless you use it – it won’t exist.

Chapter 16:  Generosity vs. Parsimony

It’s a sad state of affairs – if you’re generous, people don’t appreciate it – they simply want more.

“Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.” 

And if you’re generous with your employees?  Oddly, it makes them respect you less.  Yes.  Less.  If you have to pick a reputation, being cheap is better than generosity.  People understand cheap.  Your employees understand cheap.  They have to make choices everyday with their money.  Being generous just means you’ve got so much money that your generosity means nothing . . . .

Chapter 17:  Cruelty vs. Mercy

“Men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared.”

Machiavelli is pretty simple in this chapter.  Create fear if it helps you – the idea is that fear should help your business.  But if it’s excessive?  Eventually people will leave you.

I’m sad to say that being cruel is a much better way to create loyalty than being nice – it seems that’s just how humanity works.   A strong man who is justifiably cruel gets our respect over someone who loves us.  Every time.

Chapter 18:  Keeping A Prince’s Word

“He should appear to be compassionate, faithful to his word, guileless, and devout. And indeed he should be so. But his disposition should be such that, if he needs to be the opposite, he knows how.”

A Prince should be virtuous.  A Prince should look virtuous.  A Prince knows when not to be virtuous.  Your team, your group, your company will look the other way when you decide the company is more important than your compassion.  Oddly?  They will love you for it.

Chapter 22:  Nobles and Staff

Get good people to work for you.  Make them loyal to you.  Value competence over cool tee-shirts.

“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.” 

Don’t have idiots on your staff.  And understand the differences between intellects.

Chapter 23:  Avoid Flatterers

This might be the most powerful quote by Machiavelli, well, ever:

“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.” 

If you hide yourself from the actual truth, and punish those that would tell the truth to you?  Well, the game is over.

“Men are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is difficult for them not to fall victim to this plague; and some efforts to protect oneself from flatterers involve the risk of becoming despised.”

If you’re a leader?  Being despised is the end.

Chapter 25:  Fortune

Here Machiavelli starts looking at risk.  Here’s a rough passage, if you’re a feminist:

“It is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.”

Well.

Anyhow – Machiavelli makes a great point:  risk is not an enemy.  Risk is risk.  And when you’re in a risky situation at work, why not take it up a notch?

Actual story:  I knew that my boss had interviewed (don’t ask me how) someone for my position.  At the next available opportunity, I asked him about it.

I’ve never enjoyed a work situation more.  “How did you know?”

My response:  “If I told you, would you ever trust me with a secret?”

The look on his face was priceless.

When you have nothing to lose?  Doubling down is for sissies.  Go all in.

Remember this:

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” 

‘nuff said.

Doritos, Obesity, Addiction, and Nic Cage

“Good evening, sir. My name is Steve.  I come from a rough area.  I used to be addicted to crack but now I’m off and trying to stay clean.  That is why I’m selling magazine subscriptions.” – Office Space

nic cage rage

Now I’m gonna hum that song all day long.

What if . . . your food is actually an addiction, like heroin, tobacco, the metric system, or Lady Gaga songs?

I heard just a little bit of a radio talk show where the guest made that comment.  Well, kinda made that comment.  I embellished just a bit.

How on Earth could your food be addictive?

Humans have been eating food for as long as there have been humans.  Before that, they ate rocks.  Small ones, better for the digestion.  But humans were stupid, so our ancestor’s brains encoded subtle signals that made them think that sweet things were amazingly good.  That meat tasted wonderful.  That eating enough fat should make you feel full.

These signals directly from the food, sometimes.  Cheese contains casein.  I know that “casein” sounds like what you do to a bank before robbing it, but in this case it’s a protein found in milk.  And casein is found in dairy products, like cheese.   When you eat it, your body begins the process of digesting it.  And in digesting it, it turns it into opiates called casomorphins.  Yes.  Your body turns cheese into drugs that make you want to eat cheese.

When I eat sugar, I can feel it.  There’s a reason that parents think that kids are hyperactive, and that’s because they are.  Sugar hits the bloodstream very quickly, and stimulates an insulin response that plays hell with the endocrine (“Endo” is from the Latin for “Stupid name that George Lucas would use to name an Ewok® or something” and “crine” comes from being sad, as in “it’s a crine shame”) system.  We certainly didn’t have sugar in quantities 5,000 years ago, so our bodies developed a strong, positive response to this extremely energy-dense and reactive group of molecules.

It’s my guess that we’ve changed (via breeding) the nutrition that we get from our plants.  The corn (maize) of today doesn’t look much at all like the grass-looking plant that humans started breeding thousands of years ago to turn into the massive ears of corn.  It’s certain that the protein balance and other aspects of vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrate content have changed as we made corn what it is today.

So far, we’ve only touched on foods that were at least related to stuff we ate 5,000 years ago.  A native American from 1500 B.C. would recognize corn, kinda.  He’d recognize meat.  But he’d have no clue about what to think about a Ding Dong®, Twinkie™, or Nachos BellGrande®.

Bold John Wilder Assertion:  Modern foods have led us to a place far enough and fast enough that our digestive systems, brains, and hormonal system can’t even remotely begin to cope.

What evidence is there for this assertion?

Doritos® have more than 40 ingredients.

Wonder Breadâ„¢ has over 14.

The bread the Amish make has five.  Remove sugar, and you’ve got four.  And that makes yummy French bread.

Let’s think of the processed food that we buy in the supermarket (or convenience store) differently.  These foods aren’t the same as they were forty years ago.  They’ve been faced with the ultimate evolutionary system that the modern world has to offer:  the free market.

Markets are amoral.  They provide the product that people purchase, not the product that people need.  Markets are ruthless.  If no one buys a product, the product will cease to exist, quickly.

And what do we buy?  We buy things that we like.  Things that taste good.  Things that we crave.  What could be a better seller than food that has been taste and market tested to be something that is . . . addictive?

If you look at the data, you can see plainly that obesity had accelerated greatly in the United States.  If you were planning on hurting the place, you couldn’t have done a better job.  Sadly, there are too many changes that have happened during the time period to be absolutely certain about what happened.  The Internet hit.  Smart phones were invented.  High fructose corn syrup replaced sugar in lots of things (and it is different than sugar in how it is metabolized).  Air conditioning became more common.  Nicolas Cage started doing movies.

cdc

This isn’t good.

obesity

It isn’t getting any better.

It’s entirely possible that our changing food consumption has nothing to do at all with our changing obesity rates.  It’s probably all due to Nic Cage.

ribcage

Maybe the food sticks to your ribs?

As I’ve pointed out before, there are many, many mysteries about being human.  It doesn’t make it easier to track down what’s going on in this experiment when the world is changing so very fast.  My take?  Our parents were skinny (mostly).  Why?  They ate food with mostly few ingredients.  Steak.  Eggs.  Broccoli.  Potatoes.  Lettuce.  Butter.  Milk they just got from a cow.  And they also expended more calories without washing machines or dishwashing machines.  And they were colder in winter and hotter in summer.

So, of the things that have changed, I’d bet that food is at least a part of it.  Heck, they had Coke®, but they served it in 8 ounce glass bottles, not 2 liter plastic jugs.  Mass quantities, like maybe an addict might want.

Or maybe (ounces to liters?) . . . it’s the metric system that’s making us fat?

Karma May Not Be Real . . . But, Seriously, Why Would You Want To Mess With It?

“But not this time, this is our time.  This time you gonna hand them a business card that says I’m a CEO, bitch.  That’s what I want from you.” – The Social Network

karma knife

Your Dogma caught my Karma . . .

My first month on the job (when I graduated from college with a Masters) I travelled around to several of the company’s remote offices.  They had offices across the country, and at that time I think they had some sort of operation in 35 of the 50 states (57 if you count Texas as many times as they think they should be counted).  One of my first trips was to Central Midwestia – the rustbelt.  And our facility was right in the middle of the rust belt.  Across the street there was a stamping plant that continually (and very audibly) stamped auto parts out of glowing steel.  To the north there was a sausage plant.  To the west was a manufacturer of household cleansers.  Many of the factory buildings looked to have been built prior to World War I, and some of them looked like they had been through World War II or even the Great Sitcom wars of the early 2000’s.  Still bits of Futurama® on some of the walls.

The facility there was . . . everything packed into the size of a postage stamp.  There were areas of the facility that if you had a sandwich for lunch you couldn’t gotten through because your belly would have been too big.  And the electrical system?  It looked like it had been thrown together on a Hollywood set so you could channel lightning into a monster to have it live . . . again.

What an experience!

The next month, I had the opposite experience at another one of “our” (I don’t work there anymore) facilities.  Even though the facility had been open (in one form or another) since the Civil War, this facility, though old, was spacious, with plenty of room for moving around.  The primary purpose of my visit was to work on a problem that the facility manager was having, so, after talking about the issue and looking over the beautiful Atlantic bay that was right next to the facility, we decided to go to lunch.  The Salesguy, sensing a free lunch (I think they have radar) tagged along.

During lunch we talked about lots of different things, like how lobster stew there was cheaper than a hamburger.  Also, as a new guy to the company they each had really interesting stories to tell the new guy (me).  The conversation drifted to the places I’d visited with the company so far.

Wee John Wilder:  “Well, I did see our facility in Central Midwestia.”

Salesguy:  “What did you think of that?”

Wee John Wilder:  (Pause)  “I think that whoever set up that facility had one of the biggest challenges of a career.  I have no idea how they fit all of that stuff into that space.  My hat is off to them.”

Sure, I could have called the place a mess, but it really wasn’t – I’m not sure anyone could have done better putting all the parts into place.

The next morning when I got to the facility, Salesguy wasn’t there, but he had left me two boxes of golf balls (good ones) with the company logo on them, along with other swag he normally gave to customers.

“Wow!  This was nice of him!”

The facility manager then explained that Salesguy had been the person who had put that facility in Central Midwestia together – and he’d spent months of his life making it work, but most people had called it a mess.  Karma . . . doesn’t always mean that bad things happen.

karma more

Fast forward to last year:

I was on the phone talking to a friend that works at another company about a year ago.  The CEO (at my friend’s company) had just announced his “retirement”.  He hadn’t been talking about retirement, so the corporate world knows that “going to spend time with family” also means . . . “got fired”.

There had been some other recent changes as well at that company – the Chief Sales Guy (I don’t remember his actual title) had recently quit.  That was fairly surprising, since Chief Sales Guy had been at the company since it was founded.  The Chief Sales Guy was friends with the owner of the company, and had even suggested a possible replacement for his position as Chief Sales Guy to the owner.

Since The Mrs. had met the now fired CEO at a party some years ago, when I got home I mentioned the news to her.  Her response was immediate:  “Oh, the Secretary got him fired.”

karmahahaha

The Mrs. is a writer of novels, so I asked her to explain this particular plot.

“Well, you remember that you told me about secretary, right?”

And then I remembered.   The Chief Sales Guy had an executive Secretary that been with him for over a decade.  After he left, that Secretary was blended into the pool of lesser secretaries on the floor.  One Thursday afternoon, she had tickets unexpectedly fall into her lap for a literally “once in a lifetime” adventure (it was Elton John© performing the “Best of” Metallica™ with backing vocals by Katie Perry® and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir©).  The Secretary was supposed to work until 5pm, but would have preferred to leave about 15 minutes early to get ready.  This would have been fine with her old boss, so she found another lesser secretary who could cover for her.

But the person who could cover for her went to the “Jabba The Hutt®” of secretaries (her new boss), who didn’t like this impertinence.  So, even before the Secretary could go and ask Jabba© for permission, Jabba™ had gone to complain to the CEO.  The CEO fired the Secretary on the spot.

Fired.  On the spot.  For wanting to leave 15 minutes early.  Yeah, true story.

The Mrs. reasoned that the Secretary had mentioned her woes to the former Chief Sales Guy.

The Chief Sales Guy went to the owner and told him the story.  The owner, in the narrative favored by The Mrs., fired the CEO a week later, after he’d found a replacement.

I have no idea if this is true or not, but it really makes sense.

karma

Everybody answers to someone, even the CEO.  Oh, sure the CEO retired with $100 million or so, but I bet the Secretary enjoyed the afternoon she found out that karma had scored just a little revenge for her.  Me?  I’d have smoked a cigar and had a nice scotch.   Bet she had a Margarita on her deck with copious middle fingers for the CEO.

Your career will likely be a long one – 40 to 50 years for most people.  You will meet people on the way up, and you will meet people on the way down.  You alone control how you act and how you treat people.  Being nice is a choice.  Being a jerk is a choice.  Why would you ever choose being a jerk?  Why would you, as CEO, choose to fire a secretary for wanting to leave 15 minutes early on a Friday?

I’ll note that being a jerk isn’t the same as being honest.  Don’t lie.  Why does The Mrs. never ask me “does this outfit make my butt look big?”  Because if honesty counts against my karma scores . . . oh my.

But Texas will be fine when it comes to karma.  They have no idea that when hurricanes hit them it might be karma.  Texans?  They just want to put a saddle on the hurricane and ride it on up into Iowa so they can take that over, too.