For the past I-don’t-know-how-many years, I’ve been working on about a dozen unfinished books. Two of them are based on my experience in Nicaragua – Rancho Santana: Then and Now, a history of the resort in Nicaragua that I helped develop, and The Challenge of Charity, the story of my and Number Three Son’s 20-year experience developing Fun Limón, a non-profit community center across the road from Rancho Santana.

While both books were in their early stages, I often looked through the multitudinous entries I had made in my daily journals, hoping to find stories to include. The following is one that I’m especially fond of. It didn’t make it into the history of Rancho Santana, but I’m pretty sure it will be in The Challenge of Charity… if I ever finish it. 

Uninvited Pigs: 
Problems and Solutions 

To create the baseball and soccer fields for Fun Limón, we had to solve several serious problems.

Problem #1 

There was a thick layer of non-porous clay just below the surface of the ground on which we intended to build the fields, which made for such poor drainage that we knew we could not expect to grow healthy and sustainable grass there.

DA (a friend, Fun Limón board member, and civil engineer) told us that the only way to solve this problem and end up with the kind of grass that pro-teams and even Little League teams routinely played on in the US would be to dig out 12 to 18 inches of the non-porous clay and replace it with good soil.

We believed that having high quality baseball and soccer fields – equal to only the top one or two professional fields in the country – would be a big plus for our project. That, along with the bleachers and scoreboards and other amenities we planned to install, would make Fun Limón a model community center that could be emulated by others in the region.

So, we went ahead and cut out the clay, replaced it with good soil, and then planted a durable grass on top of it.

Once that was done, a question arose. How should we water the grass?

Problem #2 

The obvious choice was a sprinkler system. But since one of our objectives was to provide jobs for as many unemployed local people as possible, I had developed a prejudice against all mechanized systems. I believed they would almost certainly reduce the number of local people that we could hire.

Here were our choices:

The budget we had available was enough to pay three men (at the low wages that were appropriate in the area) to water the grass manually. Even if we could keep the grass watered with just three men (which looked unlikely), the cost of paying them (including taxes and government extras) would be about $12,000 a year. Meanwhile, the cost of a top-notch automated system would be about $36,000, and it could be run by one man working part-time.

We did the math and realized that, over the long haul, the manual option didn’t make sense.

After some discussion with our board members, we decided on a compromise: We would purchase an automated tractor with a watering attachment. That cut the laborers needed to 1.5 – less than the three we would be able to hire for the fully manual option, but three times better than the one part-timer needed for the fully automated option.

So, that’s what we did. And when the new system was installed, we felt doubly proud. Proud of our beautifully green and well-trimmed fields of grass, and also proud of having employed a few more local people.

Problem #3 

Alas, as I’ve learned a hundred times in my quest to turn Fun Limón into a responsible and viable charitable endeavor, our compromise gave birth to a new and unexpected problem. All that green grass was attractive not only for baseball and soccer players but for local pig owners as well. Rather than spend money on feed during the dry season, some of them figured it would be a good idea to allow their pigs to munch on our lawns.

Although we had a guard at night, that didn’t prevent stealthy pig owners from cutting the barbed wire fence that surrounded our fields and letting their pigs sneak in. One morning, we came in early to discover a half-dozen pigs dining on the soccer field.

It turns out that pigs are more aggressive grass-eaters than other grazing mammals, such as sheep and goats. Pigs eat down to the roots. Thus, a good third of the soccer field had been ruined.

Solving this new problem seemed simple. We knew all the local pig owners, so we contacted them and asked them to desist. They were gracious in acknowledging our concerns, but, in fact, that solution worked about as well as… well, it didn’t work at all.

We considered appealing to the local authorities, but were reminded, quite rightly, that even in cases of homicide the local constabulary was amazingly inefficient. “The only way to solve the problem,” said Carla, a local woman that worked as an accountant for Fun Limón, “is to shoot one of the pigs. When word gets out that we shoot the pigs, the fence cutting will stop.”

Problem #4 

“We can’t kill pigs,” I said to the board. “What kind of message will that send to the locals? There must be something we can do.”

We tried to educate the community about our problem, and even got the baseball and soccer players behind us. But three months later, the pigs were still destroying our fields.

The Final Solution 

And so, reluctantly, I agreed to execute an errant pig, rationalizing the decision bizarrely by telling myself that it was no worse than using missiles to fight terrorism.

And, yes, the problem went away.

Lesson Learned: Sometimes, you have to kill a pig. 

Am I Becoming a Conservative? You Tell Me!

Part I: Let’s Look at My Rap Sheet 

Some friends and family members that read this blog tell me I’m becoming noticeably more conservative. I don’t mind the label. In fact, I like to think that I am properly conservative when common sense and caution are at play.

(Who was it that said: “If you are not a liberal when you are young, you have no heart. But if you are not a conservative when you are older, you have no brain.”)

But I also know that my political sentiments, social instincts, and moral beliefs haven’t changed since my younger days. So, why is it that others see me as moving towards conservatism?

One possibility is that I’m now addressing issues I’ve never written about before. And the ideas and opinions I’m proposing are more conservative than those I’ve expressed about other topics.

For example, I’ve written a lot about charity over the years. (Including a book titled The Challenge of Charity that I’ve been trying to finish). And my view of charity is that it is a moral duty. Equally as important as the moral duty to provide for the welfare of oneself and one’s family.

I’ve also written a lot about affirmative action. I believe it is not only a good idea and a moral duty – both in education and employment – but also a social necessity if we want to improve the quality of life in the US for our children and grandchildren.

Perhaps people have been filing those ideas into the liberal folder.

Or perhaps they have read my thoughts on the US criminal justice system. I believe it is broken. That we have too many people in jail, including many that never committed the crimes they were convicted of.

Perhaps the people that think I’m becoming more conservative think that I’ve abandoned those views.

I haven’t. I’ve had those views for as long as I can remember.

I also believe that…

* Women should get equal pay for equal work.

* Homosexual couples should have marital and estate planning rights.

* Black lives matter.

* Young Black men are more likely to be profiled as criminal suspects than young White men.

* Black children in the US have the odds of success greatly stacked against them.

The point of all this is not to put a label on my thinking. I have ideas and opinions that, from a distance, could be categorized as liberal, just as I have some that, from a distance, could be categorized as conservative.

The labels are the problem. They convey nothing that is complex.

I’m going to write a series of short essays on political, social, and economic topics that have become hot potatoes in recent years. I’m going to begin each one by expressing an opinion I have that might surprise my liberal-leaning friends. Then I’m going to go a little deeper.

On Friday, I’ll start by tackling the question of illegal immigration into the US. This has been a huge, hot issue ever since Trump announced that he was running for president in 2016.

As I’ll explain, I believe that immigration is good for the US and we need more of it. I believe more immigration will help America stay rich, both economically and culturally.

I also believe that our current immigration policy and protocols threaten to destroy us.

The Rule of One vs. Listicles: What’s the Deal?

One of the ideas I’ve written about over the years is something I called the “Rule of One.” It wasn’t an original idea. It was a compilation of similar ideas that I rolled into one package and recommended as a useful tool for all sorts of projects and challenges. And it was the subject of a question I received last week from JW:

“Ever since I discovered your Rule of One, I’ve been trying to use it with my writing and video content. While I find it easy to focus on one individual theme or topic, I always seem to run into the same problem: I rely on listicles or try to include several tips instead of focusing on one. As an example, my video titles always end up being something like ‘5 Ways to XYZ’ or ‘3 Big Mistakes with XYZ.’ I want to provide as much value as I can, but it feels like I’m violating your rule when I do it this way!

“Do you have any suggestions for me? Are listicles something I should avoid altogether, or do they serve a purpose?”

This is something I’ve been meaning to write a book about for some time. In case I never get to it, here’s the short version:

The Rule of One is not meant to be a straitjacket. It provides focus and clarity, from which you get a kind of forward motion that you can’t get any other way.

In my books about entrepreneurship, I recommended it as a way to maximize the odds of building a successful business. In my writings about personal development, I favored it as a way to make quick progress in learning a language or developing a skill. In any challenging endeavor, the Rule of One will help you get past the common hurdles that slow down and eventually stop people from accomplishing difficult goals.

JW’s question was about writing – applying the Rule of One to writing essays, blog posts, and the like. And where “listicles” fit in.

Here’s what I think:

Listicles are great for creating curiosity and motivation, and for helping your reader understand the breadth of a given topic (the number of things that could or should be considered). If, for example, you want to write a piece about retiring overseas, you might create a listicle about the 10 best seaside retirement locations or the 10 best mountain locations or the 10 least expensive places to live, etc.

What we’ve found in publishing thousands of essays and blog posts over the years is that listicles are good at attracting attention and holding it for the several minutes it takes to read through the listicle. We know this because we track reader response to marketing copy, and the “open” and “click-through” rates of listicles are very high.

Readers like listicles because they are generally quick and easy to read. And as a rule, they are easy to write. The research takes a bit of time. But composing the list is usually quick.

Easy to write. Easy to read. Listicles are light fare – comfort food for the curious mind.

So, if you want high consumption rates on your blog posts, listicles are a good way to go. They will get you eyeballs, and that is nothing to sneeze at. (I publish them occasionally myself, when I come across one that catches my eye – one that I think my readers will like.) But they won’t get you avid followers or fans.

That’s because listicles cannot do what a single focused essay can. They cannot do the heavy work of explaining anything that is complicated or profound. They cannot change your reader’s world view. They cannot change how your reader views himself.

If you want a deeper relationship with your readers, you must dig deep. You must take them somewhere they’ve never been. And that is what we writers must do if we expect our readers to want to read more of what we want to say.

Note: My comments about listicles to not apply to lists. It’s perfectly okay to include lists in an essay that is singularly focused. It’s okay, for example, in an essay whose purpose is to argue that inflation is going up or down, to include 10 reasons why.

But as I said, listicles can’t do the hard work of writing. Because the hard work of writing is thinking. Not just lateral, superficial thinking (the kind you do when you compose a listicle), but vertical thinking. Digging into your subject.

If you want to get serious about any topic, you must give your reader an idea that is in some way different and in some way deeper than the ideas he already has. And the only way you can do that is by spending hours reading, researching, and thinking about the ideas you are coming up with before you open your laptop and put your fingers on the keyboard.

Listicles are horizontal. Wide but shallow. Rule of One essays are horizontal. Narrow but deep.

If your goal is to attract attention, listicles are a good way to go. But if your goal is to change a mind and develop a loyal reader, you must go deep.

As I predicted in past issues, the US government is moving forward with its intention to put an end to cryptocurrencies and replace them with a digital dollar. And as noted on Feb. 3, it’s been happening a lot faster than I expected.

The first step was taken on Jan. 9 with the announcement that the Fed was “opening a review to determine the feasibility of having a US digital dollar.”

The next step was the March 9 EO from Biden, “Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets,” that includes a subsection – 5(b)(vii) – requiring the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to begin working on an interagency report addressing “the potential for these [blockchain] technologies to impede or advance efforts to tackle climate change at home and abroad,” as well as “the effect of cryptocurrencies’ consensus mechanisms on energy usage.”

This is pretty clever. Instead of charging cryptocurrencies with playing a role in white-collar crime, drug running, and tax evasion (a rationale that will surely come next), the smart folks behind the digital dollar are leading the charge with this environmental concern.

And it’s interesting, because what makes certain cryptocurrencies so energy dependent is an algorithm that limits their production. It’s called proof of work (PoW).

PoW, which is used by Bitcoin, makes miners compete to solve a mathematical puzzle. The work involved in solving the puzzle becomes increasingly more complicated as the total number of the coins in circulation grows. Each calculation, then, becomes increasingly expensive, mostly in terms of electricity.

When Bitcoin debuted, a calculation could have cost the miner mere pennies. Now, each one costs tens of thousands of dollars.

This is a good thing, because it ensures that the value of each newly mined Bitcoin must increase. If it didn’t, there would be no point in spending money to mine them.

The ultimate goal is to make the Bitcoin anti-inflationary, just like the dollar was before President Nixon unshackled it from the value of gold. Since then, the actual value of the dollar has decreased by something like 99%.

If the people behind this were being honest, they would be saying, “We don’t like Bitcoin because if it one day replaces the dollar, we won’t be able to spend money we don’t have.” But they won’t say that, because it would lay bare a simple fact about our monetary policy: that it was purposely designed to let the government bribe voters with various programs it can’t afford.

Here’s the way I see the government’s current plan playing out:

* Introduce the idea of a digital dollar. (That’s already been done.)

* Start a campaign explaining why digital currencies are bad. (The March 9 EO was the first salvo.)

* Ramp up the advertising for the digital dollar as a solution to tax cheating and white-collar crime. (That’s coming next.)

* Roll out the digital dollar with major media support.

* Ban Bitcoin and all similar (i.e., anti-inflationary) digital currencies.

* Then be able to track, tax, and control the citizenry in every possible way.

How Every Little Event in Your Life Is an Opportunity to Grow Rich

Here’s a thought: Every event in life, however small, is an opportunity to become richer. Richer in knowledge. Richer in trust. Richer in friendship. And, of course, richer in financial wealth.

There are people that understand this at an almost instinctive level. I’m thinking of those rare individuals that are always on the move, always upbeat, always asking questions and coming up with ideas, always happy to help, and always eager to start new projects and set out on new adventures.

When such people have the additional blessings of intelligence and good health, they inevitably rise quickly to the upper echelons of whatever world they inhabit.

These are the natural-born wealth builders.

And they are loathsome creatures. They make the rest of us feel inferior in their presence. They don’t mean to. Of course not. They are affable. And well-intentioned. But they annoy us. They have that gift, too.

This is envy speaking. The right emotion would be admiration. And the right action would be to learn from the natural-born wealth builders by studying and emulating what they do.

Many of the most successful books on self-improvement, from Think and Grow Rich to The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People to Rich Dad Poor Dad are based on that logic. They identify a certain number of key behaviors common to the natural-born wealth builders and use them to structure their advice.

And it is good advice. Read those books. Even if you don’t like the idea of self-improvement, you’ll recognize the value in their suggestions.

We are talking about big behaviors here. Like setting goals. And choosing partners. And where to invest your time and capital. But in between those big behaviors are hundreds or even thousands of small behaviors – decisions we make daily, without thinking, that make a difference, too. Decisions that can add to or subtract from life’s richness over time.

Conversations, for example. The little conversations you have with yourself when you are brushing your teeth in the morning. Or the small exchanges you have with fellow workers. Or the answers you give your spouse or child when they ask seemingly unimportant questions about your day.

You probably don’t think of conversations like these as opportunities, let alone opportunities that can add to your wealth. But they can be.

I was – and am – as blind as the next person to seeing and seizing these small moments. I’ve been particularly bad at noticing all the little opportunities I have to increase my stores of happiness and equanimity. But in one area of my life, I did learn to do it. And it did make a difference.

I’ve told this story elsewhere before. So, I won’t repeat it at length here. But at one point in my early 30s, I decided to make “get rich” (financially rich) my one and only goal. I had no idea how I was going to do it. But with that goal in mind, I was able to make lots of small decisions that added up.

If, for example, I was shopping for a watch, it was clear to me that the one I should buy would be the cheapest one that could keep good time. If a colleague asked me for help with something, I saw it as an opportunity to deepen a relationship that could one day pay dividends.

Eventually, I didn’t need to consciously decide if or how I could take advantage of a particular situation to advance my “get rich” goal. I was reflexively looking at every little event in my life in terms of four questions:

* In what way is this an opportunity for me to increase my wealth?

* What is the potential of this opportunity?

* What are the costs and possible problems associated with this opportunity?

* And if the answers to those questions were positive: What can I do to seize this opportunity?

Better input produces better output. And when you can make continuous strong inputs a habit, you will find that all the many little things you do will become more rewarding in about every possible way.

I’m sure you do this in some areas of your life. And if you look at those areas, you will notice that you have no difficulty making small decisions when small opportunities come along. It’s easy to say yes when the opportunities are good. And no when they are not. In those situations, you are acting like a natural-born wealth builder.

If, like me, you’d like more richness in one or another area of your life, here are some little decisions you can begin making now:

1. What you decide to think about the moment you wake in the morning.
2. What you decide to talk about at breakfast.
3. What sort of programming you decide to listen to on your commute to work.
4. How you decide to greet your boss and fellow workers (including the expression on your face and your grip when you shake hands).
5. The first task you decide to work on each day. (Hint: It should be important, but not urgent.)
6. How you decide to respond to interruptions.
7. How you decide to respond to criticisms.
8. If you decide to talk to the stranger sitting next to you on a plane.
9. The tone of voice you decide to use when you answer the phone.
10. How much effort you decide to put into preparing for a speech, an interview, or a meeting.

They say it takes only 14 repetitions to make a habit. So, make it a habit to turn the little events into opportunities to enrich your life. Once you have the habit of making enriching decisions, your world will open up to you. Try it for one week. You’ll see!

When You Can’t Just Believe Her 

It’s not been talked about much. And I don’t understand why. But among Amber Heard’s many accusations against Johnny Depp is “sexual abuse.”

In Case You Were in Orbit: On Dec. 18, 2018, about two years after their divorce, Heard published an op-ed in The Washington Post. Calling herself “a public figure” representing domestic violence, and without naming him specifically, she accused Depp of years of physical and emotional abuse. Depp sued her for defamation. Heard countersued, claiming that he had also abused her sexually.

In other words, that he’d raped her.

Why wasn’t that front-page news?

Why isn’t Depp in prison?

Part of the answer is semantics. I’m using a definition of rape here that was in use for most of my life. It was commonly understood to be the forced penetration of a woman’s vagina, anus, or mouth by a man, against her spoken objections and physical resistance, and under the threat of death or extreme injury.

It was also commonly understood that rape was something that happened between strangers. (The rapist, lurking in the darkness, attacks a woman strolling through a park.)

Rape was universally condemned. Rapists were universally loathed. Due process was quick. And conviction rates were high.

Given the nature of the crime, jurors instinctively believed the woman. Why would she lie?

That began to change in the 1980s. But the real change occurred in 2012. After several decades of social and political argument on the subject, the Justice Department changed the legal definition of rape in two significant ways.

For the first time, it was made clear that rape was a non-binary crime. Men could be raped as well as women. This was a breakthrough for prosecuting a kind of rape that had been ignored. I’m talking about the rapes that happen routinely in America’s prisons. The rape of inmates by other inmates or by prison staff.

The other change was perhaps more important and more problematic. It was a change in the definition of force. Prior to 2012, the woman had to demonstrate that the sex was not only unwelcome, but that it occurred against her explicit objections and physical resistance. But now, recognizing that it was possible to be too frightened to object or resist unwanted sex, that standard was dropped. If it was non-consensual, it met the criterion of force.

This new definition made the charge of rape easier to lodge but more difficult to prove in cases where the accuser and the accused knew one another and/or had a history of consensual sex. Lacking specific written or videotaped assent for each sexual act, how do you determine, retroactively, that the sex had been non-consensual and, therefore, rape?

Like the laws and regulations enacted to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, the wrongdoing was no longer a behavior that could be seen and heard and objectively evaluated. It existed now in what was thought and felt by the self-proclaimed victim.

And that got us to where we are today. Sex between two people that know each other takes place. Later, one accuses the other of rape. There is no physical evidence to support the accusation. There is a statement from the accuser. And a denial from the accused. The investigation, indictment, and trial become a he-said/ she-said challenge for the police, DAs, judges, and juries. A real challenge, because they are all burdened with the responsibility of deciding which of two largely or completely unsubstantiated stories is true.

The core concept of rape is not at issue. Sexually penetrating a person against his or her expressed objection is still, indisputably, rape. But when the antagonists were once friends or lovers, the job of determining consent is now considerably more difficult.

That has meant more rape accusations that never went to indictments. And more indictments that never went to trial. And more trials where the defendant was exonerated. For anyone that wants to discourage rape (presumably everyone), this has led to arguments about consent that have ranged from dubious to ridiculous.

It’s not a coincidence that in the 10 years since that legal definition was changed, we have seen a surge in the number of rape accusations directed at public figures and celebrities. Although proving rape against an intimate partner has become more difficult, the damage caused by these accusations can be huge – and motivations to make false accusations are now manifold. The chances of being charged with making a false accusation are few and far between, and the consequences of making them are relatively small.

This growing imbalance between accusations and convictions is upsetting. A rape accusation – especially between spouses and intimate partners – is no longer something we can always believe.

That is why the proposition of the #MeToo movement – that we should always believe the woman – hasn’t had the support it once had. We no longer have the luxury of coming to a confident conclusion about rape when accusations are made. And for rape victims, that has made the experience of seeking justice that much harder.

And that brings us back to the trial of the year: between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

When Ms. Heard published her op-ed in The Washington Post in 2018, the #MeToo movement was at its height of popular acceptance. And, by and large, the media and the Hollywood establishment did believe her. She was the victim and heroic survivor, while Depp was roundly represented as the poster boy for rapists. He lost his $50 million contract with Disney, and has since then been pretty much unemployed.

I get it. If you agree that rape is a terrible crime, you want to believe in always believing the woman. It obviates the messiness and pain of everything associated with the crime for the victim. And it gives the casual observer a simple story of crime and punishment. But to hold that position, you have to believe that people accused of rape never make false accusations.

Unfortunately, as you can see in Good to Know, below, that’s not true.

Poor You… You Were Dealt a Bad Hand

 Part II: The Reality of Playing the Victim 

 Why do so many smart, educated people buy into the ideology of identity theory, a clearly illogical and demonstrably destructive way of thinking? Why has the Culture of Victimization spread so rapidly around the Western world?

One answer comes from a recognized fact and standard practice in marketing: Telling someone who is in pain or troubled that he’s not responsible for his plight is a prerequisite for selling him a cure. “It’s not your fault” is a phrase that is music to the conscience and a sedative for the troubled mind.

It’s bad enough that we have to live with our failures and shortcomings. But to have to live with the thought that it is up to us, and only us, to move on to better things… that’s an additional burden we may not want to bear. Hearing, on the contrary, that we are neither at fault nor responsible for getting better – and that there is a magical solution out there that will solve our problems painlessly – that puts us in the mood to buy!

In the diet industry, for example, you’d be hard-pressed to find an ad that doesn’t tell the prospect that his weight problem is not his fault. On the contrary, virtually every successful diet product is sold on the basis of correcting something other than “You eat too much.”

Saying, “It’s not your fault” gives absolution to the prospect, which lightens his mood and opens his mind to reading on. But if you can add to the promise of showing him the person or thing that is responsible for his weight… then you have not just a potential customer, but a potential proselytizer for your brand.

So, it’s not your fault if you are unemployed. Or neglect your children. Or beat your spouse. You’re not to blame if you are drug-addicted. Or if you shoplift or burgle or kill someone in a road rage incident. Your actions are the result of the disadvantages and bad treatment that society has dished out to you. You don’t need to be self-correcting. Society does.

But it’s not enough to stop at excusing your bad behavior. As a victim of social injustices in the past, you are entitled to special treatment now and in the future. You are entitled to anything and everything that other people, the privileged people that weren’t victimized like you, have.

This is an age-old con. Yet it’s never lost its luster. It is as appealing today as it has ever been.

But here’s the problem that I alluded to in Part I of this essay: Putting on the victim badge doesn’t solve your problem. It may give you temporary relief from any guilt you may feel. And it may get you sympathy from those that share your view of the world. But in the long run, it won’t help you move forward. Because nobody – not even your sympathizers – will do much to help you. And what they might do – by giving you handouts – will only make you weaker and less able to overcome your troubles long-term.

What’s worse is that every minute and every ounce of energy you spend on feeling victimized and blaming others for your problems will have added up to zero. You will wake up one day and realize that you wasted the best time of your life treading water. The world has passed you by.

In short, playing the victim won’t make you stronger or smarter or more skillful or more sympathetic or more likeable or more successful in any way.

No. Being upset about and blaming others for what you didn’t choose and cannot change will not reduce, but will increase, the obstacles you face.

It will not soothe your anger or self-hatred. It may cause hurt in others, and you may derive some short-term pleasure from that. But in the long run, it will hurt you much more.

And it will never move you one inch closer to a better or a happier existence.

What You Can Do About It 

The solution is simple. Every time you want to curse your fate and lash out at god or society or whatever demon caused you to be the victim you feel you are, look at yourself in the mirror and repeat this:

I didn’t choose it. I cannot change it. But I can change what I will do about it. I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. I’m not going to bitch. I’m not going to play the blame game. Because I am the one and only person that can save me. If I truly care about myself, and want a better future, I must pick myself up and get moving. One step forward at a time.

Poor You… You Were Dealt a Bad Hand 

Part I: You Didn’t Choose It… and You Can’t Change It… 

You didn’t choose and cannot change your parentage. Or the place of your birth. Or the culture you were born into. Or the color of your hair and eyes and skin.

But you can choose to change almost everything else.

So much of the popular discussion today is about identity. Who we are in terms of defining characteristics, such as gender, race, and faith. It can make for spirited debates. It can result in legal and political actions that can change the way we act and think. But as for individual happiness and productivity, dwelling on what we did not choose and cannot change about ourselves can do us no personal good. And it can cause us harm.

You already know this. You know this even if you have been an active supporter of causes aimed at “making the world a better place.” You already know that to make your own life better you must focus on your own thoughts and actions. If you want a better, richer life experience than you have right now, you have to be willing to change yourself.

This is just as true for the person at the lowest end of the social ladder as the person at the top. In fact, it’s such a universal truth – and such a simple one – that we seldom stop to think about it. Unless, somehow, the subject is raised. And then, we may be embarrassed to acknowledge it. We may even want to deny it. Because in saying it, we seem to be saying, “I don’t care about anyone else. I care only about me.”

What Can’t Be Changed? 

So much of who we are comes from where we’ve been and what we did or what was done to us. Good things and bad things. Hurtful things and helpful things. Accidents and lucky breaks. Attention and neglect. Kindness and abuse. Like your parentage or skin color, your personal history cannot be changed. Being thankful for the good can make you stronger and happier. But dwelling on the bad won’t make it disappear or soothe the pain or give you hope.

It cannot and will not improve your future.

There is a word we use to define ourselves by the bad things that happened to us. Victim. We say that we were the victim of bad parents or poverty or social isolation or illness or a hundred other things. We like that term because it makes something clear to others. We want them to know that we were not and therefore are not at fault.

But we have to be very careful when we self-identify as “victim.” Because we don’t want to convey to others (and especially not to ourselves) that we are not responsible for what we do and say and think.

History is replete with examples of individuals moving past the most terrible situations to achieve tremendous success. And new exemplars of personal triumph are posted every hour on social media, reminding us of what we are capable of. “If they can do it,” we think, “so can I.”

But there is a line of thinking that has a very different message. It says that we should not look to those rare success stories to understand who we can be, but to examples of the many that were defeated by what they did not choose and cannot change. They really are victims, and it is unfair to even suggest that they could have moved beyond their history of pain.

There is only one solution for such victims, the thinking goes, and that is to make changes in our social, political, and legal structures. To find someone or something else to blame, and to prosecute or penalize them and thus achieve a form of justice and relief. If the cause is abusive parents, the solution is to blame and punish them. If the cause is some thing, like racism or sexism or religious intolerance, the solution is to blame and eradicate it.

The studies I’ve seen suggest that the first line of thinking rarely arrives at a satisfactory solution for the victim. Much more often, it makes the pain and suffering worse. And as for changing social, political, and legal structures – those are long-term projects that usually take generations to accomplish. What does the individual do with his pain and suffering while he waits?

The message is: The chips have been stacked too high against you. You are going to lose at every hand. It’s not your fault, but you’re a loser. And there is no point in playing the game. You should get what you want by virtue of your victimhood. You deserve it and I am going to take care of you. Relief may not come tomorrow or next week, but be patient. I’ve got your back.

(To be continued…)

How to Be Good at Group Decision-Making…

and Why It Really Matters 

In making personal decisions, I’ve always followed a simple, two-step protocol.

* Step One: Figure out what I want to do.

* Step Two: Do it.

That worked well and still works well for me as a sovereign individual. But I am also a part of many groups – businesses, teams, clubs, families – for which decision-making happens as a group. For these decisions, in my younger days, I followed a four-step protocol.

* Step One: Figure out what I want to do.

* Step Two: Try to persuade those affected by my idea that it will be good for them.

* Step Three: If they agree, do it.

* Step Four: If they don’t agree, do it anyway.

As you can imagine, this approach had its plusses and its minuses. As I aged, and as the group decisions I had to make became more numerous, the minuses began to outweigh the plusses. I was obliged then to add some other components to my group decision-making process. Like listening. Alas, listening, it turns out, is a necessary part of good group decision-making. You never know. Listen and you just might hear something you need to know.

Lately, as I mentioned in the Feb. 16 issue, I’ve been learning more about group decision-making as a part of my family’s estate planning. I’ve been reading essays and articles. I’ve been watching videos. And I’ve been talking to friends and colleagues.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is indeed a sort of science to good group decision-making. By that I mean there seem to be reliable strategies based on human nature that make for wiser decisions and happier outcomes.

I’m going to be writing more about all of this in future issues. Today, I want to touch on four things I’ve discovered:

1. I make a lot more decisions every day than I thought I did.
2. I belong to more decision-making groups than I thought I did.
3. How we participate in making group decisions depends on our leadership styles and love languages.
4. How we participate in decision-making groups depends a great deal on the “speed” of our thinking.

1. I make a lot more decisions every day than I thought I did.

If you had asked me a week ago how many decisions I make on a typical day, I’d say six to 12, including small decisions. But yesterday, with this essay in mind, I actually kept track of every decision I made from 6:30 in the morning till 5:30 p.m.

How many did I make? Six? Twelve? Twenty?

The answer was 96!

About half of them were borderline meaningless. (“Should I shave now or when I get to the office?”) Many were somewhat significant. (“Should I listen to Howard Stern or ‘Enlightenment Now’ driving to and from work?”) And some – I counted 16 – I categorized as important. That surprised me!

2. I belong to more decision-making groups than I thought I did. 

I asked myself how many of those decisions were group decisions. The answer was about 32. Also more than I expected. Then I looked at those 32 group decisions to determine how many individual decision-making groups they represented. The answer was also surprising: 16!

If I were to count all non-duplicate groups (of two or more) as individual groups, the total number of decision-making groups of which I’m a part would probably be many times 16. Most of these groups rarely have to make decisions, and many of them make decisions that aren’t terribly important. But I was able to identify eight groups whose decisions are very important to me.

Three of them are businesses (whose earnings and equity have a direct impact on my family’s wealth). Three are non-profit foundations (whose legacy I deeply care about). One is our family “office,” including K, our boys, and their spouses (and whose decisions will affect the future wealth and happiness of the family). And finally, there is the smallest but most important decision-making group I belong to: my partnership with K.

All those different entities. All those different goals. All those different personalities. Each must have its own particular strategy for effective “corporate governance” (as the Rogersons call it). Serious issues: Time. Money. Love. So much to gain if the decisions are good. So much to lose if the decisions are bad.

3. How we participate in making group decisions depends on our leadership styles and love languages. 

 In the Feb 16 issue, I wrote about how I hired Tom and Cathy Rogerson to help our extended family make wise decisions about the family’s future. By participating in several workshops run by the Rogersons, one of the things we learned is that we all have different “love languages” (what sort of things makes us feel loved) and equally different leadership styles (director, counselor, analyst, persuader).

Each of these are ingrained aspects of our emotional intelligences. Each of them affects how we understand one another and express ourselves. Prior to this training, conversations about family topics (ranging from “Where Shall We Have the Next Family Reunion?” to “Who Should Be in Charge of the Family’s Cryptocurrency Portfolio?”) might have been laden with subtle psychological landmines. But now, knowing and respecting the differences in our perceptions and styles of communication, we can have such conversations with less stress and more success.

But there is another thing that comes into play during group decision-making conversations. This is something that is rarely discussed in conversations about communication. And almost never discussed in conversations about decision-making.

4. How we participate in decision-making groups depends a great deal on the “speed” of our thinking. 

Long before Ken Hudson’s book Speed Thinking was published, I had noticed that in business meetings some people were always quick with their ideas and conclusions, while others were always slow.

I came to think of the quick people as fast thinkers and the others as slow thinkers. At first, I believed that fast thinkers were better thinkers. And that made me feel good, because I always thought of myself as a fast thinker.

But as time went on and I reflected on the decisions made in the many group conversations I’ve had over the years, I came to realize that the early thoughts weren’t always the best thoughts – and that to make the best decisions, you have to find a way to involve both fast and slow thinkers whenever you can.

So, what do I mean by fast and slow thinkers?

By fast thinkers, I mean people that are always first to come up with new ideas and first to suggest solutions to problems that arise. Fast thinkers are good at idea flow, because they feel good when ideas are flowing quickly and are impatient when they are not. Fast thinkers are uncomfortable with slowness generally. Their ability to think quickly can be seen as a coping mechanism for their impatience.

Slow thinkers are skeptical of new ideas. They rarely come up with them, and are usually late to the party when the theme is about solving problems. They are good at critical analysis. They enjoy checking and double-checking assumptions. They are uncomfortable with deadlines and uncomfortable with speed generally. And they really don’t like to make mistakes. Slow thinkers prefer to take a measured pace, bringing in one new piece of information at a time. Before they utter a word, they want to feel like they have examined the problem or opportunity from every reasonable perspective. They have no interest in getting where they want to go quickly. They want to think carefully. Find the best possible solution. Above all, they believe that the way to be right is not to be wrong.

Fast thinkers find slow thinkers frustrating. Slow thinkers find fast thinkers irritating. In business meetings, fast thinkers will typically dominate the conversation and wield more power. Slow thinkers tend to respond to this by becoming passively aggressive. And worse, feeling bullied and shut out, they may put their intelligence into criticizing or even sabotaging the fast thinkers’ proposals.

This is not a formula for decision-making success.

Fast-Slow Partnering: My Whole-Brain Strategy for Group Decision-Making 

As I said, I consider myself a fast thinker. In discussions about problems – business or personal, theoretical or practical – I’m invariably the first one to offer solutions. And when the conversation is about a challenge, I’m the first one to come up with a plan.

In decision-making groups where I don’t have a thinking partner, I usually dominate the conversation and get my way. In decision-making groups where I do have a partner, I also tend to dominate… initially. But as the conversation continues, my slower-thinking partners often get their way.

Here’s the thing: When I don’t have a “slow-thinking” partner, my idea-to-success ratio is about 50%. When I do, it’s much higher.

So, considering all of the above, I have come to the conclusion that the ideal situation for decision-making is to have partners whose thinking speed is contrary to yours.

If you are a slow thinker (analytical), you will tend to reject the ideas of fast thinkers because they will come too quickly, too abundantly for your comfort. They will also be rough-hewn, because fast thinkers usually share them the moment they have them. But it is a mistake to voice your objections to their ideas the moment you hear them. Be patient. There will be time for criticism later.

If you are a fast thinker, you will likely feel like you are not just the first, but often the only person to come up with ideas in brainstorming sessions. This is probably because you are overwhelming the slow thinkers with your barrage of half-baked ideas. After your first volley, take a pause and ask others for their suggestions. If there are none, finish your proposal and schedule a follow-up session. Make it clear that the purpose of that meeting will be to consider alternative ideas. (Expect the slow thinkers to come prepared.)

So, what do you think of my theory on fast and slow thinking? Tell me quick! I want to know now!