MarkFord
The thing about war… even when it is justified, it is grievously destructive – and not only in terms of loss of life. Here, for example, from History.com, are 7 important cultural sites that have been damaged or destroyed. LINK
Good advice on how to be chosen for the job you want…
“Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.”– Dwight D. Eisenhower
How to Stop Your Boss From Turning You Into a Human Suggestion Box
I have a reputation for being a pain in the ass. As a founder of or major investor in many businesses, I am constantly sending CEOs memos about new product ideas, new marketing strategies, new management protocols, etc., etc., etc.
The usual response is polite agreement, followed by an explanation of why they are already doing “something like that.” (They rarely are.) Or why they are currently too busy to take it on.
Of course, this doesn’t make me back off. On the contrary, it makes me wonder how on top of their game they really are. And so I keep pushing.
And they dream of a day when I drop dead or at least suffer a stroke that makes it impossible for me to send any more emails.
Here’s the thing. I don’t expect every suggestion I make to be executed. I understand how much CEOs of growing businesses have to deal with every day. But I am not going to refrain from making suggestions because it stresses them out. My obligation is not to them or their employees. It is to the quality and quantity of products and services the business produces. In other words, my interest is in increasing the value we bring to customers.
Recently, though, one of my CEOs did a very smart thing. Tired of circumventing my emails, she began sending me her suggestions. I think she decided to give me a taste of my own medicine to see how I liked it… and, well, I liked it very much.
Some of her suggestions were terrific and I told her that. More importantly, she demonstrated that she was fully committed to the same goals and objectives I had – to make the business all it could be.
I’ll continue to send suggestions to all my CEOs – but in her case, I no longer feel the urgency. I’ve been able to relax a bit and enjoy her momentum.
What she did reminded me of something I did about 30 years ago, working for JSN. He was constantly putting monkeys on my back, and I wasted far too much time trying to explain to him why I could only handle so much. Then one day I somehow caught his bug and began coming up with ideas myself. I got so good at it that he stopped pushing me and let me push myself.
circumvent (vert)
To circumvent (sur-kum-VENT) is to manage to get around an obstacle or difficulty; to avoid defeat, failure, unpleasantness, etc. by ingenuity or deception. As I used it today: “Recently, though, one of my CEOs did a very smart thing. Tired of circumventing my emails, she began sending me her suggestions.”
How many words are in the English language?
Last week, citing the Oxford English Dictionary, I said that there are 171,476 English words in current use. But after thinking about it, that number seemed awfully low. So I did a little research – and I found estimates all over the place, some as high as a million. It depends on how the “count” is done. The OED counts only “full” entries. Other sources count different versions of the same word (plurals, tenses, spelling), obscure and obsolete words, etc. So the answer to the question “How many words are in the English language?” appears to be: Nobody really knows.
If you’re looking for something good to read, you might like one of these books from my January reading journal:
Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance by Naveen Jain– Ignore the first three chapters, which read like a mundane treatment of the philosophy of abundance. After that, it gets much better, with lots of examples of how technological progress is accelerating even faster than Moore’s Law predicted. Jain gives you good reason to believe that many if not all of our biggest problems, including war, poverty, and global warming, could be largely solved in the relatively short term.
Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs– Sometimes it’s hard to understand why a particular artist is considered to be a standout, while his contemporaries whose works seem similar are not. It’s much easier if you look at the entire scope of the artist’s work instead of a single example that is considered to be “brilliant.” Such was my experience looking through this collection of Ansel Adams photos, mostly landscapes but including a handful of mesmerizing portraits and still lifes.
Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Lifeby Rory Sutherland– Thoughts from an advertising man about how imagination can transform experience and our understanding of the world.
I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School by Caroline Taggart– True to its title, the book is chock full of interesting bits you could have learned in school. Example: In geometry class, I learned how to calculate perimeters and areas and have used those simple equations thousands of times since then. But I had forgotten how to measure the circumference of a circle (diameter times pi) and got reacquainted with the Pythagorean theorem – fun to know but apparently useless.
And here’s a book that’s not worth your time…
Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation by Eva Illouz– I began with the best expectations, but couldn’t finish it. This is a profoundly stupid book that argues that “love” doesn’t work today because the “institutional organization of marriage” precludes the “possibility of maintaining romantic love as an intense and all-consuming passion.”
In this recent video posted on BusinessMadeSimple.com, Donald Miller explained that he likes to eat lunch alone because that’s when he gets his best ideas. LINK
I buy that. I rarely have business lunches because I’ve found that they are like basketball games. All the important action happens in about 5 minutes. It’s much more efficient to have 15-minute meetings in my office. What’s even better than those short meetings in my office are Zoom meetings. Zoom (and like technologies) is amazingly good. You can see all the participants. And when someone speaks, their face enlarges – drawing your attention like it does when someone speaks at a “live” meeting.
“The demonization of wealth in this country is mind-blowing. A country built on both freedoms and commerce.”– Alec Baldwin
I believe in redistributing my wealth. I feel a moral obligation to share what I have with others. It makes me feel good to share. The benefit of that good feeling more than compensates for the money.
But I don’t feel that anyone is entitled to my wealth. And if someone that felt entitled should ask me for money, the answer would be “no.”
There is a difference between believing in a moral obligation to share one’s wealth and believing in socialism and communism. The difference is the difference between freedom and coercion. The mandated (forced) redistribution of wealth is not a moral but a political activity. The moral action is neither paying taxes nor favoring government-mandated redistribution, but the unforced sharing of wealth.
In a recent blog, my friend Bob Bly talked about the growing “demonization” of wealth and tells a good little story about entitlement.
You decide…
Should the Less Wealthy Be Entitled to Your Wealth?
“This demonization of wealth and success in America is nothing new….
“But is it right?
“What some people are calling the ‘maldistribution of wealth’ in this country is causing a growing number of Americans to criticize… and in some cases rally against… capitalism and the free markets.
“Which in turn is fostering a growing sense of entitlement – expressed in programs and even laws that would essentially require the people who have money to be made to give it to people who do not.
“I bring this up not to get into politics, but as an excuse to tell you a personal story which I believe also contains a worthwhile point and lesson in it.
“Years ago, I got an email from an angry freelance writer. She said I had stolen her intellectual property by using, without her permission, a large portion of a magazine article she wrote, in a book of mine published several years ago.
“And she demanded I send a sum of money to avoid prosecution.
“I had a hard time imagining me doing what she accused me of, as I never deliberately use other people’s material in my books unless I have their signed written permission to do so.
“So I dug up the project files… a bit of a panicked search, on my part, because without it, my goose was cooked… and sure enough, the permission form, with her signature, was right there.
“When I told her I had her signed permission form, she said I was lying and did not believe me.
“I offered to fax it to her and did so immediately.
“Minutes later, she emailed again, saying she didn’t remember signing my permission form, and she would never give permission for her material to be used by another author unless she was paid.
“I pointed out that in fact she HAD given permission without asking for money – which is somewhat common.
“Her next email said I was being unfair. Why? Because I was ‘rich’ and she was ‘poor’ – and therefore I could afford to pay the sum she was now asking for, even though I had agreed to no such thing.
“Her final email once again asked me to pay her, for the sole reason that she ‘needed the money.’”
– Bob Bly
demonization (noun)
Demonization (dee-muh-nuh-ZAY-shun) is the portrayal of something as wicked and threatening. As used by Alec Baldwin in today’s quote, above: “The demonization of wealth in this country is mind-blowing.”
“20/20 Vision” in Taki’s Magazine LINK
One day I want to meet this guy…