Coronavirus case counts are declining.
The vaccination rollout has hit plenty of potholes, but people are getting a shot (or two) in the arm, and a third approved vaccine will be available soon.
The snow is melting. Daylight savings is two weeks away.
Spring is on the horizon too.
After our endless year of desperation and frustration, and our long winter of depression and despair, perhaps hope is finally on the way.
Keep singing, hope… it’s music to our soul.
If Oscar Wilde was correct:
I should be feeling very flattered right now. And pretty great too.
Three weeks ago, I wrote a post about the mental health perils of the coronavirus lockdown, and encouraged you (and by “you” I mean the four readers of this blog… Hi Steve! Hi Jeanne! Hi Jacqui! Hi Tim!) to reach out to four acquaintances just to say ‘hi.’
The mental health crisis is the silent pandemic. What can we do when we’re still in lockdown? We can’t hang out with a bunch of strangers in a bar (unless you’re in Sturgis for the Harley Rally – anything goes!) But we can at least reach out to a few of our casual acquaintances. Whip out that smart phone, scroll through your contacts to find four folks with whom you haven’t connected in a while, and shoot each of them a quick text. Just to say howdy.
A really smart guy, three weeks ago
OK, now let’s fast-forward to yesterday (seems oxymoronic, but just stay with me here). Ryan Estis is one of the many “achieve your dreams” gurus making fat bank off corporate speaking and consulting gigs. (His website sayeth: Ryan Estis is a sales and leadership expert preparing companies and individual contributors to embrace change and achieve breakthrough performance.) And guess what he talked about in his weekly “Prepare for Impact” email newsletter yesterday? Pretty much the same damn things I covered three weeks ago:
Son of a biscuit-eater… Ryan Estis stole my idea!
I’m not upset. I’m flattered… and now I realize I’m just a sport coat, a checkered shirt and a wireless mic away from being a “leadership expert.”
(I actually do like Ryan Estis’ stuff. Obvi – I subscribe to his newsletter. His most famous presentation is at the bottom of this post. )
Hey Ryan, hit me up in the comments, and I’ll let you know my home address so you can start sending royalties my way.
Once upon a time, there was a great future in plastics.
The graduate. Plastics from Veaceslav on Vimeo.
My wife’s grandfather had this model train car in his collection:
A bright yellow car with “Plastics” plastered on it. It couldn’t be louder or prouder unless it had a few exclamation points.
Now, plastics are threatening our future…
But there’s still hope. Boylan Slat, a Dutch inventor, was just 18 when he started Ocean Cleanup back in 2013. He’s trying to tackle the complex challenge of cleaning up the ocean garbage. These days, he’s also working to remove it from the 10 rivers that contribute the most garbage to the patch.
We can do our part, a bit further upstream… by reducing our use. Weaning ourselves from bottled water is a great place to start.
Bailing out on plastic bags will help too. A lot of cities have banned single-use plastic bags, or are charging a fee if you use them.
These relatively simple daily changes may seem like a drop in the ocean. But maybe that’s the point.
Jeff Tweedy, a songwriter and musician best known as the leader of the band Wilco , has written a ton of great songs. He’s also written a couple of books. His most recent is How To Write One Song.
If you aspire to be a songwriter, there’s plenty of useful info in the book. And if your goal is merely a single song, the same holds true. (Tweedy is wisely lowering the “barriers to entry” with his book’s title. Writing a single song seems much less daunting than becoming a songwriter.)
But even if you never want to put pen to paper and create a song, you’ll still find plenty of creative fodder in Tweedy’s breezy and engaging book.
It’s not really about songwriting, it’s about creativity, in all its forms. The songwriting angle is really just an interesting construct, a device to get us to embrace our inner creative kid and ignore the critics, both internal and external.
I love that advice. Seems like we’ve heard similar suggestions before, right? Ignore the haters. Do what you love. Do it out of love, not out of a search for approval or fame or fortune. Trust the process, don’t worry about the end result.
It seems so simple, yet it’s difficult to put in to practice. Because we’re scared to be vulnerable.
Here’s the money quote:
I’m convinced the dreams we have for ourselves go unattained from a lack of permission more than any deficit in talent or desire. And I’m going to stress that when I say “permission,” I mean the permission we withhold or give ourselves to pursue those dreams.
jEFF tWEEDY IN hOW TO wRITE oNE sONG
Check out Jeff’s book… then give yourself a little more permission. One song at a time.
Sweet dreams!
Snow belongs on ski slopes and Christmas cards… not in my driveway.
Ice belongs in cocktail glasses… not on the roadways.
People have the power… unless ice storms take down electric lines.
Don’t take it personally, Jersey Boys, but I’d be fine with just three seasons.
And for all you “if it’s going to be cold, it may as well snow” advocates, I’d like to gently remind you that 80-car pileups don’t happen in “cold” but they do happen in snow.
“But snow looks so pretty!” Yeah, for about an hour. Then the snow plows come along and turn it into a black/brown/gray slushy mess that makes every sidewalk a Slip ‘N Slide.
Hey, if you like snow so much, why don’t you move to Colorado? (Or Austin this year…)
I suppose if the Snowpocalypse is going to happen, it may was well be during pandemic, when we already have to shelter in place, go out only if necessary, and cover up when we do go out…
I’ve learned so much from PBS. And when I say “PBS” I mean Pearls Before Swine, the comic strip. (What, did you think I was talking about that highfalutin TV network?) Here’s Stephan Pastis’ brilliant strip from yesterday:
Astounding, ain’t it? Good work if you can get it…
Yeah, I know you can counter this with an argument that CEOs are the LeBrons and Beyoncés of the corporate world, and superstars get super pay. (Pro tip: you probably shouldn’t use LeBron and Beyoncé as your examples, as Blacks and women are woefully underrepresented at the CEO level.)
Are CEOs really nearly a thousand times better than they were back in 1978? Highly unlikely. Not even the CEO of Stark Industries deserves that big a bump, and he’s saved the world a time or three.
I’m not saying CEOs shouldn’t make millions… but their salary should be linked to the salary of the worker bees in their company.
Ideally, we would tie worker pay to executive pay. The maximum ratio would be enforced by law. In order for those at the very top to enrich themselves more, they’d have to raise the wages of their employees. Companies would no longer be able to pay minimum wage to many of those at the bottom and tens of millions to those at the top. All the happy corporate talk about “team members” would finally mean something real.
From this Gawker article back in 2013! Nothing has changed since…
That way when the kingpins get the gold mine, the rank and file won’t get the shaft. And the rising tide will truly lift all boats… not just the yachts.
Peter Guber is a movie producer. He’s produced many memorable flicks such as Rain Man, Batman, The Color Purple, Midnight Express, Gorillas in the Mist, and Flashdance. He’s also produced some clunkers, but he’s got a nice batting average. All told, the films he’s produced have grossed over $3 billion worldwide and received 50 Academy Award nominations.
Oh, he also co-owns the Golden State Warriors, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Football Club of the MLS.
By the way, he’s also a bestselling author. His most recent book is titled Tell to Win.
Peter was a guest recently on Rob Lowe’s podcast, Literally! and had a lot to say about the power of storytelling. Check out this excerpt.
I love that term, emotional transportation. (Clearly this blog is like a Yugo Taxi that’s running low on fuel, but still…)
“Resonant, memorable, actionable.” Yeah, that’s the ticket!
The full podcast episode is here. And Peter Guber’s article for the Harvard Business Review, The Four Truths of the Storyteller, is here.
Keep sharing your stories!
Every year, the men’s basketball teams from Xavier University and the University of Cincinnati square off on the court, in what’s known as the Crosstown Shootout.
There’s no love lost between the two teams… there was an ugly post-game brawl in 2011.
The fan bases can get rather rabid, too. With a bit of perspective, it seems silly for normally-sane adults to get so emotionally invested in a single basketball game between two groups of mostly teenagers. (But as a Xavier alum, I’m duty bound to mention the fact that my Musketeers have won 10 of the past 14… Let’s Go X!)
However, there’s a new XU-UC “shootout” going on right now where there are only winners: the local bar and restaurant workers. It started more than a month ago when a man and his daughter left a $1,000 tip at a venerable burger joint and finished off their note with “Go Xavier!”
Since then, fans of both schools have been engaged in a friendly game of one-upmanship, leaving monster tips at dozens of local restaurants.
This tip war isn’t a war of attrition, it’s a war of appreciation for the local restaurants and bars whose business has been crippled by coronavirus, and the workers who rely on tips to get by.
It’s good to know that folks from both schools have their heart in the right place (and apparently fat wallets too).
I’m not a Tom Brady fan. Far from it. As a Raiders fan, the “Tuck Rule” game that launched his legend still sticks in my craw.
But as a fellow old man, I have to admit that there was a small sense of satisfaction with seeing a 43-year-old top a 25-year-old.
It’s also worth noting that Tampa Bay’s coach, Bruce Arians, who is 68, became the oldest coach to win a Super Bowl. He didn’t get his first head coaching gig until he was 60!
Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Today I’m posting an “encore presentation” (don’t you dare call it a rerun) of a post that originally appeared waaaay back in February of 2016. That was a whole different decade. A more peaceful era. A time when we could congregate in large groups and see the bottom halves of people’s faces. “Gee, ain’t it funny how time slips away…”
I’m reposting it for three reasons:
Please silence your cell phones, sit back, relax, and enjoy today’s encore presentation:
The Super Bowl to end all Super Bowls (at least until next year) is just a day away… and already I’m sick of the hype. Not the hype for the game – I’m oblivious to that after years of Roman Numerals being shoved in my face XXIV/VII (see what I did there?). I’m sick of the hype for the halftime show. Excuse me, I meant to say “The Greatest Halftime Spectacle In The History of The Universe” or whatever they’re calling this year’s gig. They went with the Chinese Restaurant menu approach this year – one from each column – Coldplay for the aging wannabe hipsters, Beyoncé for the soul sisters, and Bruno Mars for… well, pretty much everybody else. And of course they have a corporate sponsor, because there’s a sponsor for everything. I’m surprised they don’t say “This Geico commercial is sponsored by Bud Light.”
Call me an old fuddy duddy (merely typing that phrase makes me an old fuddy duddy) but I actually miss the early Super Bowls before the greedy tentacles of the NFL and advertisers hijacked the halftime show. For many years, the “entertainment” (using that term very loosely) was Up With People – a group of overly earnest teens singing easy listening versions of the day’s top hits. Sort of like an Osmond Family clone army. Sure they were super cheesy and super lame, but who cares? It’s halftime – time to reload on food and drinks.
Now that was quality entertainment!
You done said…