In Treatment

I watch this HBO original series and am consistently impressed by how well written it is, and how great a job all the actors do.    I watch the show because I think the show puts on center stage many changes that are occuring within the American culture.   Of course I also like understanding the ‘why’ behind peoples actions…

http://www.hbo.com/intreatment

Apartment For Peggy

Apartment For Peggy is a movie I stumbled upon.  It happened to be on the TV–about half way through to the end–when I turned it on today, and I sure am glad it was.  I watched the entire last half of it, because it was so well written and articulate.    Perhaps I read into movies too much, but I think the movie is great, and perfectly fitting for a young leader.  I think the movie does a good job of illustrating a number of lessons.  In addition, the movie was surprisingly watchable for being so old.  Some of these lessons include:

• focusing on money, makes you short-sided,and unable to see the forest among the trees
• a tree takes a long time grow big and tall, but it is beautiful once it has
• don’t raise peoples hopes prematurely
• philosophy means the love of wisdom
• leadership may naturally follow passion
• a positive attitude is infectious
• the wise continue learning all through out their lives
• anything worth doing, isn’t easy
• times sure have changed (women are treated much differently nowadays)

 

Watch the movie, and maybe post some lessons you took from the movie as comments to this post!  I would love to read them.

dumb question?

If there is no such thing as a “dumb question,” why is there apparently such thing as a “great question” or an “an interesting question”? Over and over, I hear really smart people say things like “that is a great question”, and I think this must mean that the speaker is judging a question on a scale of quality. My question is thus do “dumb questions” really exist, and can they be identified as that question which is not followed by “that’s a great question”?

life experiments

Tonight, I learned some interesting things from the experimental man, author, and Esquire magazine editor at large: A.J. Jacobs.   He came to the university to talk about what he has learned from the series of “life experiments” in which he has immersed himself.   He is famous for these experiments because he commits himself to the project, for better or worse, then writes about what he learned.

Some of the experiments he has undertaken, and the books or articles that resulted, include:

• The book The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (2004)  –   He spent an entire year reading all 32 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
• The Esquire article “My Outsourced Life” (2005)  –  For 30 days, he out-sourced his life to two personal assistants in India and who did everything for him from answering his e-mails, to reading his children good-night stories, to arguing with his wife.
• The Esquire article “I Think You’re Fat” (2007)   —  He, for 30 days, practiced radical honesty, which required that, among other things, he verbally express whatever thought that came to his mind at the moment that it came to his mind.
• The book The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (2007)  –  He lived for one year according to a strict and literal interpretation of all the instructions that the Bible provides for how people should live their lives.   This included, as examples, that one should stone adulterers, blow a shofar at the beginning of every month, and refrain from trimming the corners of his facial hair (which, he followed by not trimming his facial hair at all, because he didn’t know what the corners of his facial or head hair were).

 

The takeaway

So what was did I take away from his speech and talking with him afterwards.  First, that he is a nice guy who has a very loving/patient wife, but also that we can learn so much about ourselves, and each other, as very social and political animals, when we put ourselves in these extreme lifestyle experiments.   Most importantly, the experimenter learns a great deal about their own personal moral code.   Jacobs, for example, shared with us that he learned a great deal about how he feels about religion and how he came to the conclusion that he wants raise his children to be exposed to at least some form, from his Living Biblically experiment.  There are other lessons, but the important take away is that if you want to learn about yourself, conduct an experiment, with you at it’s center.

Tribal leadership

So, one of the unclear ideas that has been bouncing around in deep–almost subconscious recesses–of my brain was this idea that my leadership skills had anything to do with my background, which very much includes having experienced depressing environments and phenomenal teamwork.  Well, this TED talk by David Logan on the idea of ‘Tribal Leadership’ has helped me understand the value of my experiences and how it helped make me the person that I am.

“If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.”

“If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.”

I came across this quote, and it describes well how I seem to live my life…always curious and interested in experiencing new things, I feel my focus is divided amongst a number of things.   It being a native american proverb, only makes me ponder even more seriously if I’ll ever succeed at achieving my life/career goals.

There is another native american proverb, however, that gives me hope:

“If we wonder often, the gift of knowledge will come.”

Unfortunately the first proverb seems to carry more weight since it seems to be more physically evident.

My hope is that my curiosity and willingness to try new things are strengths; not weaknesses.   I think it is just a matter of finding a place where these skills are truly valued.

Fortunately, I believe a career as an entrepreneurial industrial designer is an ideal place for me.  I believe the career and the work will continue enabling my ability to innovate (i.e. that connect ideas from seemingly unrelated disciplines, to create new ideas/products).  I hope I am right!

two amazing epiphanies learned tonight

two things i learned tonight while watching the president’s farewell address and then Gordon Ramsey’s tv show “kitchen nightmares”:

1) President Bush’s foul ups and the way he spoke with such poor delivery (e.g. turning the page of paper at the podium and not even looking down because he was reading the teleprompter), made me realize how tough a job being President of the United States is.  and, although you’ll never here me say “let’s reelect another George Bush”, I do respect the job he did–given the many very tough decisions he was forced to make.

2)  Watching Chef Ramsey in his show, “Nightmare Kitchens: Episode entitled ‘Giuseppe’s’” (which you should watch because it made tears almost run the length of my face), I formed a new opinion of the chef and learned an important part of life.   I used to think he was purely arrogant, but now I like his directness and think him far more human (watch the episode entitled “Cafe 36″ and you will see what I mean), because I think it shows respect for the person he once seemingly attacked.   Regardless, I learned from watching his show, that there is an irreplaceable joy that one enjoys from serving people directly.  Whatever the form, corporatations serve the consumer indirectly; and professions that enable me to serve people on a personal level is just more rewarding.   I feel this, as I slam the keys on my keyboard.

The only question remaining in mind is whether I would feel a loss if serving individual people directly would leave me at a loss when they didn’t help create that human connection.   I guess that is what one has to risk.

I battle constantly with the idea of publishing my posts in favor of immediacy and inarticulate posts.  I value so much peoples’ time that I don’t want to waste it.  I hope you trust that I am trying to do the best by you: my readers.   Share and Love!