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Protected: One’s Origins: A Journey from Adoption to Identity – Part One
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For the Moment
Not too long ago I saw a clip from an interview with country music star Dierks Bentley. In this interview, he revealed that he still uses a flip phone as a mobile device. His reasoning is that being constantly connected to multiple mediums robs him of being ‘in the moment’ and he feels his creativity is sorely diminished. So, a simple means of communication only when communication is necessary is all he feels he needs. I can relate to the creativity comment. I am gaining some momentum with my guitar lessons and I find some forms of modern technology do take away from the ability to focus on tasks at hand – namely, creativity. Maybe I’ll get back into blogging. And maybe even a new song or two will emerge.
I’ve tried to do the one or two month social media (SoMe) detox or cleanse at times (to the relief of some :-). I did this by disabling accounts and making myself invisible and unfindable but not gone. Inevitably I return to the same old time stealing practices that ate more nonsense than not and is void of value for me.
When buried in a mobile device or almost any modern technology, you are always ‘there’, and never ‘here’.
The second half of 2018 starts today, July 1. So I am initiating a new SoMe approach. Kinda like a mid-year resolution. I am not exiting social media – and let me be frank, I am referring primarily to Facebook and Messenger. I am not leaving altogether – at least not now. I will be removing mobile apps thus cutting my 24/7 access to it from my phone. If my current phone was paid off, I’d look into a lesser smart phone. I will still check here and there every few days – Messenger also. But, it will be on a laptop and only when I permit myself a legitimate break from all of life’s ‘in-the-moment’ moments. And there are always an abundance of those moments so visits to SoMe will, by God’s grace, be few.
Ciao for now,
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No Joy Without Gratitude
In the aftermath of a brief recent rant on Facebook about the White House’s seemingly slow actions against terror (which I have since taken down) I have been “double dared” by a good friend Rich O, to post something positive today. I happily accept. In light of what seems to be going around “ALS Ice Bucket” style is the “Gratitude Challenge” I am not sure if there is a charity benefiting from this but I have to believe that whoever takes the time to acknowledge sincere gratitude in their life is the primary beneficiary. According to author and speaker Brené Brown, a life of true joy cannot exist in the absence of actively practicing gratitude. So Rich, here is my acceptance. There is a quote I once heard in Boy Scouts many years ago that goes something like this:
“When money is lost, nothing is lost. When health is lost, something is lost. When honor is lost, all is lost.”
I have seen this attributed to Billy Graham, Walt Whitman and an unnamed general in the Civil War. In any event, my gratitude lies in this phrase. I am healthy. Through I work at it, I know that I am fortunate to live in a civilized time and place that allows me the ability to do so. The same goes for money. I am not where I would like to be but I am grateful for what I do have and what I have earned. Moreover, I am grateful that I am physically and mentally able to learn and earn.
Now for honor. I am not perfect. I make mistakes with the best of them. I can, however, profess my gratitude that I was raised honorably and with a sound set of values. As to whether or not I reflect those values into the world, only those with whom I interact can opine on that. I can only hope I do.
In closing I am very grateful for friends and family who are willing to accept me warts, (and Facebook rants) and all. Who can ground me when needed and whose mutual respect still endures.
Thanks for reading and thanks Rich for the double dare.
Have a Great Day!
You are not a quitter. You are grounded.
With the exception of these opening two paragraphs, the entirety of this post was written by George Bruno. I met George in the Fall of 2013 and in only a handful of interactions with him, I can assert that he is grounded in his distinction between “celebrity” for it’s own sake (i.e. ego) and “celebrity” for the purpose of being impactful in the world. Having felt incomplete myself in an otherwise well paying and relatively secure career, I voluntarily took the exit ramp in 2008 (not the best of economic times) with only one idea – to create something new. Although that which I was to create was not even defined.
What follows is a recent Facebook post by George and his subsequent comments. It is full of such resonance for not only me, but also so many others I have come to know in the past several years.
A lot of people will eventually say “I dabbled in a little acting for a few years”, then will go back and look for a “real” job. They needed that little diversion where they actually thought they were going to “make it big”. Every city has it’s community of “superstars”. Then you dial it back to a dribble and subscribe to the longterm plan and you roll the dice every now and then. BUT you needed those few spectacular hopeful years, made a few friends, and learned to stretch your brain in new ways. It was all good. It’s OK to pull off the road to the rest stop or even just change the route altogether. You’re not a quitter. You just had a reality check. You’re smart. You’re a better speaker now. You’re fearless in front of crowds. You network better. You can go back to a career or life with some new skills. So when someone says “Oh, you’re an actor..or an artist…or whatever creative title you choose” It’s Ok to respond, “Yeah, I dabbled a little”. It’s all good.
Most actors would be better off as motivational speakers or trainers. Same skills. Same gratification. BUT ten times the income. Some people love hearing others say “I saw your commercial”, but don’t know it only paid the actor $400. In their mind, the recognition is the pay. (That pays a lot of bills doesn’t it?) Commercials seem to be the actors version of a selfie, lol. Been there. Eventually you get tired of being broke.
Want to be a celebrity? Start a business, be successful, create jobs, help others get rich and achieve their dreams.
Thanks for reading and thank you again George.
Have a great day!
Solve for X
Algebra – the bane of existence for countless secondary school students. And for many, algebra is a source of entertainment in the way of puzzle solving for many others. I fall into the latter category. Engineering was my undergraduate academic path perhaps in part because, at least from my perspective, the path to problem solving was more prescribed than not. By this I mean we were taught algorithms and formulas to use when solving the myriad of problems we might encounter. When we were faced with a new problem, our creative latitude was bound by the constraints of mathematics and science. We were in a sense always guided by rules in our pursuit of a solution.
Later in my career I was involved in computer coding of moderate complexity at best to automate repetitive computational tasks. While I had creative license to derive the solution, I was nonetheless limited by the rules of logical syntax – and yes, even algebra. Any computational line of code using variables to store numbers is, by definition, using algebra.
Contrast that with what we refer to as ‘design’. Perhaps not the textbook or mainstream definition, I would not be for off in tendering a definition of design as something that is bound only by the limits of human imagination and can arouse strong and enduring human emotion. Design is manifested in so many parts in our lives: architecture, furniture, appliances, automobiles, technology and yes, even – dare I say especially – literature.
Design is what it is because of what it evokes in us. That is perhaps its most significant distinction from algorithmic problem solving. Other than a transitory personal victory, (“Yay, I got the right answer!”), algorithmic problem solving is not evocative in the way that design is. Emotional reaction to design is a highly personal matter. And since we are all different from one another, successful design can be especially challenging. It requires a level of creativity than goes far beyond the creativity required to overcome challenges of the situational and physical environment.
Building a structure to withstand the demands of its environment offers few creative options; all bounded by the rules of physics. Designing something, on the other hand, to move people emotively is to operate without rules and its limits extend all the way to the expansiveness of the human mind. Similarly, writing a collection of words to entertain or otherwise maintain engagement of an audience is one thing. To write something that shifts the way a person sees the world and how they operate in it is another. As I have suggested, there are no rules in design. There is however, a necessity in understanding and contextualizing humanity’s common denominators – whatever they may be.
My point in opining on this is personal and poignant. I am (for better or worse) in the throes of trying to bring – yet again – a new idea to the marketplace and thus into the world. It is relatively new and the even the sense of need itself requires no small amount of effort to create. At this stage, there are no rules, no sets of formulas or equations to arrive at an answer – other than a few known fixed costs. The answer is not known. The answer itself is being created by constantly moving forward. And that is a paradigm I am not used to. I am extremely grateful for the support and contribution of a few friends without whom I wonder if some days I would be overcome by otherwise feelings of despair.
I close with a quote from Charles Kettering, the famed inventor and head of research for GM. “A problem well-stated is half-solved.” Perhaps design and problem solving are two sides of the same coin. We solve for x and we design for y, or z, or p, or q, or r, or…
Thanks for reading. Have a Great Day!
Matt G.
Image credit: pixelsaway / 123RF Stock Photo
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Whatever you are looking at, that's where you will go
In a recent conversation with a friend of mine about the viability of an admittedly audacious business dream, a disparity emerged on the optimism – pessimism spectrum. It lead me to reflect on my musings about the influence our attitudes and views on future events have on real outcomes.
On February 25, 2003, an episode of the popular sitcom Frasier aired in the U.S. entitled Fraternal Schwinns.
Pressured to participate in, rather than just contribute to, an AIDS fundraising bike ride, Frasier (played by Kelsey Grammer) and his brother Niles (played by David Hyde Pierce reveal that they never learned to ride a bicycle. Niles’ wife Daphne (played by Jane Leeves) offers to teach them both in the park.
Frasier is afflicted with constantly riding straight into a sycamore tree and the dialogue goes something like this.
Frazier: “It’s that damn sycamore; it’s got a magnetic hold on me.”
Daphne: “That’s because you keep focusing on it. Whatever you do, put it out of your mind. The more you think about it the worse it gets”
Source: http://weliketobike.com/2011/06/17/roller-coaster-ride/
The take-away reveals that what we focus on is what we will likely achieve. Let me use another bicycling example – not a surprise to those who know me. If you ever watched a pro bicycle race in the high mountains, it is almost beyond comprehension how well the twisty descents are handled at high (be it momentarily reduced) speeds. A couple years ago I attended a training camp that focused on climbing and descending skills. While climbing requires muscle and respiratory training, successful descending requires a skill I call fast-forward looking. Navigating downhill around an almost U-turn on a switchback is accomplished by focusing your eye on the line you want the bike to travel through the turn and where it is you want the bike to go – not on a fixed point directly in front of you. The reason for this is because if you focus on a fixed point in front of you, you will be on that spot within fractions of a second without any thought given to what lies ahead. At the speeds obtained going downhill (gravity effects pros and amateurs alike) there is no time to plan where to go next and panic ensues. On the other hand, if you focus on the path ahead where you want to go rather than a fixed point you will more safely and successfully navigate your way to your overall destination. Applied in business, once we commit to a course of action, we risk failure by focusing too much on why or how we might fail. We should instead stay focused on where it is we are trying to go – the road ahead. This only furthers to case for focusing on the positive. Things will go wrong – just don’t focus on what you fear might or could go wrong.
Are you playing to win or playing not to lose? Any successful athlete knows which mindset works best. Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” If you focus attention on what you want to avoid you will inevitably hit it. Don’t run your business as if your trying to avoid failure. Identify the path you wish to follow and as they say in cycling, Hold your line!
I wish a wonderful day to all!
Special Thank You to Miko & Jon at http://weliketobike.com/ for allowing me to use images from their blog website.
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False Sense of (sunscreen) Security
If you are one of the thousands – dare I say millions – of people who enjoy spending countless hour on the beach in the summer and you have migrated completely to the spray canisters to apply your sunscreen, PLEASE STOP!!
I continually observe the same thing over and over again. Users of the spray-on sunscreen use the product without regard to wind speed or direction. I have too often watched people spray on the sunscreen and almost ever drop that came out gets taken away by the wind and none of it ever lands on the skin. Even worse and more frightening is when used on very small children and then off to play in the sand they are sent with no measurable protection against sunburn.
So when folks get sunburn I suspect many will rail against the sunscreen manufactures and some might even try the class action lawsuit approach. Let us try a different tact. Let’s take responsibility and become attuned and observant to what is really happening around us. Let’s try some situational awareness on for size. Trust me, one size can fit all.
On the economic front, using these sprays without regard to whether the product is actually arriving on the skin is literally money being blown away by the wind. Which shamefully may be be the intent of the manufacturers. In that case, yes, let’s string ’em up!
When using sunscreen, please, use the lotion most of the time. You know it’s being applied by skin to skin contact. For the sprays, I do use them but more for the hard to reach places like my back or on my feet if they are full of sand. And I always make sure I am positioned such that the area to which I am applying the product is a few inches downwind of the can.
Stay sun-safe folks. Summer and the beach equals fun. Sunburn, not!
Thanks for reading. Have a Great Day!
Matt G.
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Tagged summer, sun tan, sunburn, sunscreen, suntan lotion, suntan spray, suntan sprays
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Brains, Hands and Hearts
On a family television program many years ago, one of the characters (a man in the middle age range) was giving advice to a young boy. While pointing to this head then his hands, he said, “If you train these two things, you will never go wrong in life.” I took such advice as sage. I figured that with a learned mind and skilled hands success was a sure thing. Not going to college following high school, I spent four years in the trades in my late teens and early twenties. I learned a great deal about home construction and the proper use of hand and power tools. I also acquired a keen eye of detail and a sense of right and wrong in its mechanical manifestation (i.e. keep rain out of the house!). Following this – and about the same time many of my peers were graduating – I returned to college to earn a degree in engineering. Certainly, I was now well on my way to life of success.
Upon graduation, I spent the next several years as a management consultant and never practiced engineering professionally – other than a few complex equations here and there. Feeling I was still light on some executive level business acumen and hungry for yet even more knowledge, I self-funded my way through an intensely powerful and life transforming Executive MBA program. Between the gifts of my hands and my mind, I could not imagine anything standing in the way of me achieving untold success. How naive I was. No matter what corner of the professional world in which I chose to operate, I wasn’t going to get very far without skills in relationships. To be sure, I am very personable and I warm up to most people with relative ease. Moreover, I have an innate ability to sense looming breakdowns in relationships I observe whether as a participant or bystander. I learned a great deal about the soft-skills of leadership and I do place great value on relationships.
I mentioned skills of the brain and of the hands; both of which I feel I have in spades. Developing deep and trusting relationships – even in business – is a skill of the heart. Knowledge and manual dexterity will get you places but earning trust for your credibility, authenticity, and integrity is a skill that truly sets apart those with enviable success. A person who is both a genius and an alchemist but lacks this third skill – relationships I believe, is destined for struggle.
Relationship building is not a single step process to be marginalized. It requires a devotion to a process and authenticity of self towards others. In others words, it requires the same dedication to mastery as does craftsmanship and knowledge. I am committed to my own growth in developing business relationships at this level.
In closing I want to extend a warm thanks to my friend and fellow business school alum, Bogie Rosypal, for his contribution to the insight for this blog. It was during a conversation with Bogie that this idea of relationship as a third skill emerged such that I could articulate my thoughts with the result being this post.
As always, comments are welcome.
Have a Great Day!
Posted in Leadership, Relationships
Tagged Leaderships, People, relationships
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Permission To Accept Love
On this Valentine’s Day, I request your indulgence as I break away for a moment from the normalcy of the theme of my blog articles. Today, I wish to discuss a topic that rarely (i.e. very nearly never) comes up when our heads are engrossed in our work life. The topic is ‘love’. This is not about integrating love in a discussion around work. My intent is to provide something to ponder if you are one of the multitudes who, especially this time of year, find themselves reflecting about their life’s course where intimate relationships are involved.
I will mention up front that this is a little autobiographical – which for me is reaching beyond my comfort zone. I am going completely off the ranch today. Saddle up!
On this Valentine’s Day, I am immersed in reflection of all the indescribably fantastic romantic relationships I have had in my life. The experiences I have shared with my ex-girlfriends have been nothing short of magical. And still, I have inevitably wound up making my way to the exits. This Valentine’s Day I find myself compelled to analyze this. That I am analyzing an emotional phenomenon is something that surely surprises no one who knows me well.
To begin, I want to share a story of love felt, stifled and then lost. For nearly a quarter of a century, I have resisted temptation to allow one very painful experience to be incorporated into the narrative I tell myself about my existence. I have done this because I did not want the memory of one individual to ever serve, or be seen as serving, me as a crutch. I am convinced now that by suppressing what was truly the first feeling of love in my life, I have put myself, and those with whom I have been involved, through horrific emotional pain. If you are among them (I am referring to no more than about a handful) please know that my love for you was real then and even today my affection is strong. I am truly sorry for my role in the pain we experienced together.
In the spring of 1988, I was looking forward to my fast approaching 21st birthday. My parents agreed to throw a party at our house and I thought that was really cool. I began calling friends to invite them. I called one of my dear friends Tonia and before I could share the news of the party, she interrupted to say she had something important to tell me. I went to her house and learned the news that would change my life forever. She had just been diagnosed with leukemia and the prognosis, while not immediately dire at first, was certainly not good.
Tonia and I met a few years earlier at the house of a mutual friend. I remember that night like it was last week. We nearly watched the sunrise together we talked for so long. Our relationship evolved into a very special friendship. I loved hanging out with her either alone or with our other friends. We never actually dated. I never wanted to ruin the friendship we did share and I lacked the courage to move our relationship towards anything more no matter how strong my feelings. I believe that then, as still today to some measure, I lacked trust in my feelings. During our friendship, Tonia dated a couple of guys here and there. In a weird way, rather than be jealous, I felt happy for her. If I did not have the courage to tell her how I felt, then at least someone could make her happy. Despite my determination to keep my feelings suppressed, I know now and have known for some time, that I was in love with her. I know at that post-adolescence age, ‘in love’ can often be a mask for a myriad of sensitivities. I am convinced even to day that I was in love because the feelings I had then for her are as sharp in my mind today as any experience from my youth.
So let’s return to the crushing diagnosis. Well, within fourteen months, her battle was lost. I visited Tonia often (at home and in the hospital) during in those fourteen months. During my one of my last visits in the hospital, while she was unconscious, I finally manned up and told her how I felt about her. I could only hope that she heard me, and that she took leave of this world aware of my love for her. Within days, she was gone. I have no idea if she felt the same way about me and to speculate one way or the other is only to invite undue torture upon myself.
Her death completely crippled me emotionally. The pain I suffered from this has left such a mark on me that to this day it impacts my ability to allow myself to fully “fall” in love. If there is even the iota of a chance of feeling that degree of pain from loss, I seem to have taken the position of forgoing the joys that love offers. I have loved since and for many I still hold in my heart a great deal of love. I am a loving person. The difference is in the degree of full surrender.
Here is where the nerdy analysis emerges. I had concluded that falling in love is something for someone else. Please forgive the cliché and the near reference to the lyrics of The Monkees “I’m A Believer”. I realize now that this paradigm has only served to structure the narrative I tell myself about my rightfulness in receiving love from another person. For 24 years, I have not been willing to accept the love of another simply because I either did not recognize it. If I recognized it, I was afraid of it. If I was not afraid of it, I did not trust it. If I trusted it, well, then I simply questioned my deserving of it. The strange thing is that I was loved greatly as a child so the question of deserving is a mystery. Being adopted may play a role. I am not a psychologist and can’t opine – especially since I am the obviously the most non-objective person here.
So today, nearly a quarter century later, I feel that I must give myself permission to allow the story of Tonia into my life’s story. I can only hope that by doing so, I can also learn to grant myself permission to recognize, trust, and accept love from another person, and more importantly, from myself.
If you have someone in your life who means a great deal to you – tell them so. Do not wait. If you are without a significant other this Valentine’s Day and that is not your preference, first smile and love yourself. If this is difficult, do not beat yourself up. Accept the difficulty and start from there. Second, ask yourself, what narrative do you hold as true that might be holding you back from receiving love of another person?
I wish a Happy Valentine’s Day to all!
Thanks for reading, have a Great Day!
Matt G.
To Start A New Tradition Try "Goofy Pageantry"
Robert Burns
Photo Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns_supper
I was recently invited as a guest to A Robert Burns Supper with the St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia. One of my best friends from my childhood is a long-time member of The St. Andrew’s Society along with his father who has held officer posts in the past. I have attended many formal banquets in my life but few, if any, have ever compared to the structure of which I witnessed at the Robert Burns Supper.
The evening was filled with energy and networking. Throughout dinner there where several brief remarks made by a few prominent individuals in the society. Looking at the agenda, I counted no less than 13 such moments throughout the evening when someone would get up and share a few words. For the most part such words were solemn; sometimes they were intently delivered with humor (including light innuendo) and sometimes there was interactivity with everyone in attendance. I, as the outsider, was left presuming that the messages and the craft of delivery were steeped in a rich tradition that predates the Independence of the United States from British rule.
During the evening there was one part where a gentlemen took to the podium to offer The Toast to the Lassies (queue up the the playful innuendo). At the conclusion of this toast, a woman took to the podium to deliver The Reply to the Laddies. With so much laughter and ceremony surrounding the evening up to this point, it was quite apt for this woman to poke playful fun at the antics surrounding the evening by referring to the night as being filled with “goofy pageantry”.
I realized right then and there that it is indeed the fun we purposefully design into our lives that fuels tradition and not just solemnity alone. If you wish for sustainability in the design of tradition, keeping elements caged that will incite laughter is indeed ill-advised. Go ahead make ’em laugh a little. That will provide enduring inspiration to carry the torch far in to the future.
As always, comments are welcome.
Thanks for reading. Have a Great Day!
Matt G.
Posted in Behavioral Influence, Business Communication, Business Relationships, inspiration, laughter, Leadership, Management, tradition, Uncategorized
Tagged Behavioral Influence, inspiration, laughter, Leadership, management, relationships, tradition
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