Staying Hungry

Okay - 6.77 BILLION people in the world and as of yesterday the World Health Organization reported only 79 confirmed cases of Swine Flu world-wide. Does that REALLY make it a pandemic? I’m seeing people predicting this is the end of the world. It’s not folks.

Who benefits from a panic and the sale of Tamiflu - which doesn’t cure or prevent the flu, but ONLY lessens the severity of the symptoms…why, Bush, Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld of course!

According to CNNMoney, Rumsfeld is a million dollars richer because of the flu panic - and THAT figure comes from a flu story in 2005!!! Imagine what the current panic is doing for sales!

8,000 people have died in Mexico as a result of gang violence and drug wars in the past few months. Only 16 CONFIRMED cases of death from swine flu - and of the 150 deaths SAID to be from swine flu in Mexico - lab reports confirm only 20. Wait. One source says 16. One says 20 CONFIRMED swine flu deaths…but the media gets all hysterical and says 150-152?? What? What’s wrong with that picture?

Congressman and Physician Ron Paul dealt with this panic in 1976 and said the same thing then that he’s saying now. It’s NOT a big deal.

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After living in the remote wilderness of West Virginia all his life, an old hillbilly decided it was time to visit the big city.

As she looked into the glass, she fumed, “So that’s the ugly bitch he’s runnin’ around with.”

I laughed. So did you I’m sure. But this email from a friend was part of a discussion I’ve been having with people about how our thoughts, how our outer reality is just a reflection of what’s happening inside us. Psychologists call it “projection.” Are you calling someone annoying? What is it that makes it annoying really? Is it something that you do yourself?

Byron Katie speaks to this topic in “The work.”

And while this may all seem like it has nothing to do with triiibes or tribes, it has everything to do with triiibes. Because the stories we tell about others may really be the stories we’re telling about ourselves. I don’t believe in the absolute mirror theory, but I do believe that our THOUGHTS about things rather than the FACTS about them, impact our business, our clients, our communication.

How?

Well, in the past week three new clients have come to me with new business and I’ve turned them down - even though I could really use the work right now. Why did I turn them down? One refused to pay my rate, even though he could afford it - but his last web designer “ripped him off,” and never finished the website and charged him $2,000 and he got screwed. I told him I was sorry that happened, but that I was not that designer. I offered to break down the work in segments and get paid only after he was satisfied at each stage. His solution was to pay me $300 for a $2,000 website. I declined. He was angry at his last designer and I knew I would end up taking the brunt of his anger and that didn’t work for me. He didn’t respect me or even want to give me a chance at proving that not all designers were rip-offs.

Another would-be client wanted a brochure. Simple enough. But his competition made fun of his last design, so he wanted me to figure out a way to create a design THEY would respect. Huh? Think of the Microsoft/Apple pissing contests. Same thing. I don’t want to be designing for a company that would NEVER admit the design was cool even if they thought so. We had “the talk” about being his own man and setting the standard, not following someone else. He wanted to pay for ONE FINAL design, but not all it would take to get there. I turned him down too.

A fairly well-known copy-writer came to me and asked me to write an ebook for them and then “split the profit.” I’d do 80% of the work - they’d handle all the money, create the landing page, and then eventually sell the site and take 2/3’s of the sale. For an “up-and-coming” writer like me - they said, “It’s a great deal.” No it wasn’t. We’re not talking thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars here. He was talking hundreds….as in, less than $1,000. I didn’t laugh in his face, but wish I had. In the past he’s offered me $5 per hour to rewrite his articles. No respect there for me.

My initial thoughts were: What is wrong with ME that I attract these people? Then I wondered if the “mirror” was about me not respecting myself enough and attracting people who didn’t respect me, and on and on and on!! The friend who sent me the hill-billy story said, “You’re not the problem - it’s the STORY you’re telling yourself about what YOU see in the mirror that’s the problem.”

So - the moral of the story - stop trying to figure out what the mirror is “saying” and start looking at the story YOU’RE telling about what you see IN the mirror. It’s the STORY you tell about what you see that matters most….THAT will determine your feelings, and from your feelings will come your actions. Look closely. What do you see?

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I suppose one of the most aggravating things about blogs is they change their appearance. You get used to a certain look and then the writer goes and changes it all. Usually - without telling anyone they’re going to! You show up one day and POOF! Wha???? You have to double check to see if you’re at the same blog! Well, I’m letting you all know right up front - I’m starting a redesign that will allow me to make it easier to sign up for my newsletter and free ebooks and a place I can showcase more photos. I appreciate your support and I understand if you’ll miss the orange. I love the orange, but I’m learning to use Wordpress and do simple CSS and I think you’ll like the new themes I’m working on. Thanks much!

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“Wow. It’s just like leather,” my friend said.
“Um. No. It LOOKS like leather, but it’s not,” I said. “I need leather.”
Thus ensued a debate over the strength and properties of real leather versus a man-made fabric that “looked like” leather. I was willing to pay the extra few dollars for a backpack with a “real leather” bottom because I needed the scuff factor and the durability, plus the waterproof possibilities once I treated it. And I like the look of real leather. It ages well and every cut and nick and stain tells a story.

I thought about that all night. Dreamed about it really. And woke up wondering why we are all so impressed with things that “look like” the real deal, but aren’t. A friend of mine built a “kit car” in college. That’s a car that looks like the real car, but isn’t. I have bookshelves that are made of particleboard, but “look like” real wood because of a real wood veneer.

Carry the examples far enough and you have Politicians who “look like” real average joes - if average joes had $20 million in the bank. Watch the national news during a tornado or flood and the newscasters all “look like” they’re out there in the elements suffering just like the folks they’re covering - they get to crawl back into luxury RVs or go back to a hotel room - not huddle in their darkened, flooded home….but to look at them you’d think they “looked like” they were suffering too.

What is the fascination with “looks like” for us? When did we insist on the real deal, authentic - in our food and relationships, but settle for “looks like” in everything else?

For most of us the issue is purely financial. If I hadn’t needed the leather bottom for real hiking and backpacking and was only going to use the bag as a purse or overnight bag, I might have settled for the “looks like” leather to save $20 bucks. I don’t need solid wood bookshelves because I rent my apartment and plan to sell them when I move. I don’t want to invest in solid wood until I have my own place. Then I want the real deal.

I also want the real deal when it comes to relationships. I want friends who are honest with me, who are real with me, who trust me enough to know that they can be themselves. If they’re tired, they say they’re tired. If they’re busy, they say they’re busy. If they simply don’t feel like talking or going out to dinner they say so - no excuses needed. I’m happy to say I’m lucky there. Are you? And are you BEING the real deal when it comes to relationships? Are you comfortable being honest? If not - why not?

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Our lives are the product of a million influences, nudges, comments and knowledge of whose origins we know nothing about. And while the actions or inaction’s of others are impacting us every day, so our actions and inaction’s are impacting others as well.

The phenomena is called “The Butterfly Effect” - a belief that the air stirred by a single butterfly’s wings flapping eventually creates a typhoon that hits land on the other side of the world. It’s a principle that viral marketing - or all successful marketing is built upon - one small thing leading to another, and another.

A snowflake by itself weighs nothing. Put it with a ka-trillion others and it will collapse oak trees, roofs and any structure known to man by its sheer weight.

Most of us know who Rosa Parks is and how her refusing to move to the back of the bus sparked the Civil Rights movement, but how many of us know that she was not the first African American to refuse to move to the back of the bus? Ten years before Rosa Parks took a stand, baseball legend Jackie Robinson was court-martialed (and acquitted) for not moving to the back of the bus. Robinson, a second lieutenant at the time, was on trial not because he had violated any articles of war, his attorney told the board, but because a few officers “were working vengeance against an uppity black man.”

All charges were dismissed, and several months later, Robinson received an honorable discharge from the Army. But the butterfly’s wings had flapped and ten years later the winds of a typhoon called the Civil Rights movement began to stir. “A life is not important,” Robinson said, “except in the impact it has on other lives.”

How true. Some of us can identify the butterflies who stirred the wind that moves beneath our wings. Others only know they’ve felt the breeze and puzzled over the events in their lives that seemed to be a “stroke of luck or fortune.”

And while we all have been touched by the butterfly effect - sometimes we forget that all we do creates our own breeze, or typhoon. It doesn’t take much. A careless remark, a timely compliment, a smile, a welcome, an insight, an email or an invite for a cup of coffee. There are many ways to stir the winds of change. A person you introduce to someone today may change their life tomorrow.

I read a story recently about a man whose teacher ridiculed him for his lifelong desire to be a firefighter. The teacher thought it was stupid and ridiculous to follow such a dream when there was college and a world of other opportunities to pursue. So the man went to college and hated the life others expected him to live. Eventually he gave it all up and went back to his real love - firefighting. Hr became a firefighter and loved it. Then - amazingly enough - he recently one day to a crash site and extricated his old teacher and his teacher’s wife, and performed CPR on him, saving his life. And now he has the story to tell, and does, and it changes lives. People hear it and follow their heart. All because a teacher ridiculed a job choice so many years ago.

How will you change the world today?

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People do their best when they’re following their passion. And Ken Robinson explains why. We all “know” this - that we’re happiest when we’re doing what we love. But do you understand it really? Watch this and see if you do.

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Malcom Gladwell has pretty much explained how to “find” the multi-billion dollar answer to social media with his TED talk on spaghetti sauce. He’s right. You can’t ask people what they want. You test all the variables. You don’t say, “What do you like about social media? How do you use social media? What do you THINK or FEEL about social media. You look at the data. How are they using it? WHEN are they using it?  Good video. Howard did food, who will do social media?

Anyone with a solid psychology background probably has a great handle on how many (Enneagram) “3’s” and “6’s” and “8’s” there are any social network, but what personality type is most likely to use (or not use) social media? Any indicators that point to what kind of people are in the 20% that do 80% of the work, posting or innovating? What if the secret to social media is not to market to a tribe, but to personality types WITHIN that network or media? Adds new meaning to “social media” doesn’t it?!

When we begin seeing the world and people around us in the way they see themselves, and respond to their actual needs rather than their perceived needs - the world changes.

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Until April 2007, Ruth was a normal busy professional mom of 8 children–obsessed with her career.  She worked hard and reached the pinnacle of success (or so she said she thought at the time). She became a Chief Financial Officer for a large nonprofit,  loved her job, but put in extraordinarily long hours which meant less time for her husband and kids.  But the tradeoffs were great.  Ruth said “We were living the American dream—plenty of money in the bank, a nice home, nice cars (even an RV and Goldwing motorcycle), the kids had every gaming system that came out, the list goes on and on.”

But then tragedy struck. Ruth said:

“Our perfect little American dream came crashing down around us when our 21-year old son accidentally overdosed on acetaminophen.  Over a 5 day period, we watched as he was snatched away from us so prematurely.  However, the shock caused us to reevaluate the way we were living our lives.  Material possessions no longer mattered as much, all we wanted to do was spend time with our children.  We found ourselves anxious when we were at work, and our youngest children (aged 8 and 9 at the time) started experiencing problems at school because they couldn’t shake the feeling we might not come home that night.

“We started making changes gradually—first by working out a deal with my employer to allow me to work from home so I could home-school the kids for the last few months of the school year.  The following September, we enrolled them in a charter school that several of their friends were attending, and tried to go back to our old lives.  I continued to work fewer hours in the office which allowed me to spend more time with the kids, but we found it wasn’t enough.  By December, we not only decided to home-school full-time but to move back to my hometown, where most of my family lived, that following summer.

“It wasn’t easy.  My husband was lucky enough to find a telecommuting position with his employer, but I ultimately had to resign from my position because my employer really needed someone in the office.  I tried to find another job closer to our new home, but the economy was already starting to slide so I decided to focus on my QuickBooks consulting practice which I’d started back in 1996 so I could work from home until my kids started kindergarten.  There were moments when we were terrified about our decision—would we be able to survive on just my husband’s salary and, more importantly, were we hurting our kids by moving away from the only home they’ve ever known?

“It’s now been nearly two years after our son died, and even though we miss him terribly we have to admit our lives are better now in so many ways.  My business is thriving—I even continue doing remote consulting for my former employer.  In fact, I now make much more money than I ever did as an employee.  More importantly, I now spend 24  hours a day, 7 days a week with my husband and children.  This might drive some people crazy, but I’ve never seen our kids happier or more secure.

“I guess you can say this is our son’s last gift to us—he opened our eyes to what was really important…before it was too late.”

* * *

I understand Ruth’s sadness and joy at awakening. In one of my last conversations with my father before he died from brain cancer, I asked him - “Do you have any regrets?” He said “A few, the biggest one being that I didn’t travel and do more fun things. I planned to do that when I retired and now I won’t get to.”

It wasn’t that we didn’t try to drag him off. I sure did. My constant whine growing up was, “We never have any fun. We’re always working.” And indeed we were. He kept busy at the office, but he kept us busy at home as well - working on the house, cleaning, mowing, painting. It was a work ethic distilled into me early and I became a dutiful “Type A” - although I did take summers off to camp and bum around the country, it didn’t last long and I never got enough “fun.” I don’t mean partying and drinking. I mean having friends and relaxing, tending to relationships and enjoying life. Now I’m trying to do that. Like Ruth, I know what the important things in life are - and now that my immediate family is pretty much gone - friends and travel beckon. And here I sit - trying to decide what to do, knowing what to do, and planning to do it. How about you? What are you doing to enjoy the gift of life, love and friends?

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Buddy (left) and Otis (right) are best friends. Obviously they have their differences - size being the first thing that leaps to mind. But more than that is life perspective. Buddy is bigger, slower, WAAAY more mellow and laid back. And Otis, well, Otis is a chihuahua. He’s the canine equivalent of the hummingbird. Yet - they manage to get along very well. Buddy sleeps, Otis stands guard. Otis, I hear, never sleeps. He is also prone to be more cautious, more adamant and opinionated. Yet - they find common ground. In spite of occupying the extremes of their universe they manage to both “be dogs.”

I have a few friendships like this. All we have in common is we are both human. I find myself chasing my interests and passions as they ravel and spin out into the universe like balloons freed of their knotted gatekeepers -  my friends watch in amusement. They tend to be grounded, rationale, reasonable and practical. I’m Otis….yapping and snapping and spinning in circles and exhausting myself while my “Buddy” (or Buddies) are snoring, sniffing the air, lolling on their back or expecting someone to come along and slip them a treat or scratch their ears. Their world and their world view is so different, so safe, so ordinary and practical. And mine - so full of things to chase, shadows to watch, people and things and and and and….stuff. Whew. It’s exhausting.

But as I studied this photo and smiled at “Buddy” sleeping “safely” under Otis’ protective guard, it occurred to me that our best friendships are the ones like this - the ones that bring our uniqueness, our one-of-a-kind outlook on life, or solutions, or circumstance to the relationship.

Life with another six or seven Otis’ would drive us all to snarl and snap at each other. Put Buddy with six of his kind and you’d have the snooze of the century - with nothing much getting done. Like Buddy and Otis - those we have the least in common with are our best friends because they enable us to shine at what we do best. It’s been said that a candle shines the brightest in the darkest room and I have to agree. Look around. Someone in your life is the darkness that allows you to shine and vice-versa. And whether you’re friends or not - realize that the qualities that make you uniquely you are best revealed in your differences - not your sameness.

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Sorry for the title. Blame Malcom Gladwell. I’m halfway through “Outliers” (page 173) and laughing so hard I had to stop.

“Call a southerner an asshole and he’s itching for a fight.” Gladwell writes, describing an experiment where northerners and southerners encountered a carefully constructed experiment. He’s right. I could have told him that without the experiment. I also understand why southerners have a slow fuse, but surpass their wimpy northern counterparts in explosive capability once they are pushed to the breaking point. We southerners are a unique breed and I’m truly sorry Gladwell doesn’t understand why. Why? Because the same dynamic that drives southerners drives inner-city gangs and the mafia. There are some differences, but after his insightfulness about the importance of “community” in the beginning of the book, Gladwell doesn’t seem to connect the dots about the core/soul/spirit of WHAT specifically is so important about community. He seems to be looking at most of the things that are important to community - mitigated speech, connection, interaction etc. - but he doesn’t seem to make the most vital connection. It’s on the tip of his tongue I think…but not quite there.

Part of my father’s family hails from Harlan, KY. I spent part of a summer there in 2005 (one week) learning how to do portrait photography in the local Wal-Mart. I interacted with 20-30 families every day for a week, talking to them about their kids, their lives and chatting them up as I took their portraits. That many families wanting photos during the week is high. And there’s a reason. Harlan is hot. It was particularly hot that week - even my motel AC wasn’t working. A lot of folks in Harlan either don’t have air conditioning, or don’t use it, so they go to the Wal-Mart and wander around during the day to stay cool. One of the ways to not get run off when you spend six hours in the Wal-Mart without buying something is to stand in line and get your kid’s picture taken.

So for me, that week as a people watcher was invaluable. I put my people skills to work helping families save money. Women on welfare and working too, would spend $400 for pictures of their kids. To tell a southerner how to spend their money or suggest that they can’t afford something means, essentially, “Calling them an asshole.” I had two choices, keep my mouth shut (not really a Becky option) or help someone determined to spend rent on photos get the best deal. To get the best deal on photos, buying a certain value card could save them$150 or more than $300 over a year on photos. But the card cost $10 and most associates failed in getting customers to buy the card because they didn’t know the right story to tell.

Yet I easily held the record at that store for sales of the card and the associate I explained it to also doubled his sales. Why? I understand BOTH how to piss off a southerner AND how to woo them. One word - “Respect.” It’s all in the story I told about the card and in the end, they were always the smart one. I quit that job soon after. What Gladwell doesn’t know is that the poor DO dote on their kids, but only until a certain age - around four or five. Once the kids start school THEN the youngsters are on their own.

Gladwell seems perplexed about the mechanism that makes Southerners Southerners. He just doesn’t “get it.” Why? He asks, do southerners persist in “being southern.” He has done other experiments and can’t figure it out. And that is why I’m laughing. Just as most readers overlook the birth date indicator on the hockey teams, Gladwell overlooks the answer to his own question. “Don’t call me asshole.” He knows that’s the trigger, but he doesn’t understand why. To a southerner, it’s obvious. Painfully obvious.

I’d heard both good and bad about this book and I have to say, it’s interesting reading. I’ve recognized the things he’s describing all my life, but now I know the science/facts behind it. And I understand better the “advantages” I had as a writer. My spending 10-20 hours a week for seven years writing “papers” so my father wouldn’t beat me gave me the 10,000 hour advantage to launch my writing skills. (For those not familiar with my story, my father would strip me and beat me regularly with a leather belt for any reason or no reason. At the age of 10 I asked him if I could write a paper (he was a huge advocate of education and the only thing he respected in life was great writing) about why he shouldn’t beat me if he would stop with the belt already. He agreed. For the next seven years I wrote for my life.) Malcom was right about people getting the edge by starting early and being motivated. I certainly was.

I’m starting to ramble. But I was so taken with the book and Malcom’s statement I had to post. And for those who want to understand the second most important thing about southerners…..never apologizing for offending them leaves the door to the feud open. If at any time the Hatfields and McCoys, or other feuders had sincerely apologized for offending or harming another - the feud would have ended. As long as there is no apology, any time you appear in public you are saying “You’re an asshole,” all over. It’s part of the code. I know Northerners, Aussies and the Brit’s and perhaps other cultures don’t understand that - so I just thought I’d share. Apologies work for everyone, but the southerner is unique in that the feud or ill will will last for life. If your customers are southern, and a good deal of them most likely are, it’s a good thing to know.

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