There were two days the other week that were notable for their eco-friendly nature.
On one day, I didn’t leave the house and didn’t drive a car at all.
On a 2nd day, I got a ride to the subway, took the Metro downtown, and got picked up on the other end. Didn’t drive myself at all.
Wonder if there’s some tax credit I can claim?
For a long time now, there slogan has been “if you don’t get it, you don’t get it.”
I saw that slogan at a hockey game the other night and, since I’ve NEVER subscribed to it, and there’s plenty of evidence that the model is dead, I kind of felt like it should be:
“If you get it, you don’t get it.”
Maybe harsh, but hey, the blog is about creating controversy, right?
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Once a month, I make it a point on a Sunday to take the kids to do something “uniquely DC.”%5B2%5D.jpg "outing to American Art Museum (2)")
My new friend, Alexandra Levit, has a book coming out that I’ve checked out and think that it may be worth it for you as well. New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career
What I love about this book is how it is so based in the practical.
In fact, the bulk of the book are true stories of transition (and we’re talking TRANSITION in a big way) by regular people who figured out how to both reinvent their careers and, without sounding overly melodramatic, themselves as well.
Back in March when I got that nice mention in the New York Times, the focus was on how I was offering to assist the members of my network who had been laid off or “downsized.” (As we saw the other day, it’s not over yet, either)
So, I’ll now add this book to that list.
BTW, Alexandra also has a great blog where she cites a study she just completed saying that “half of employers say they currently have such a serious gap between their needs and employees’ skills that it affects their productivity.”
I think she’s got a very good read (having been a subscriber now for a while) for how our economy/workforce will need to change.
Tonka has slept over at her aunt’s and her grandparents before, but the other night, she was invited to stay the night at one of her friends from kindergarten.
Just one of those seemingly inconsequential moments when you step back and recognize that your little girl is growing up.
Just wanted to share.
I promise you, I had this idea 11 years ago. I remember where I was on the streets of Tokyo, Japan when I came up with it.
Maybe I wasn’t the first, but it was there.
Now, however, I will share with you a very well-written description of it….what if you could invest not only in companies or products, but in people and their future potential?
Privatize the market for education and development.
The premise is intriguing.
Imagine you are in your early twenties, out of college several years and your best friend, who recently came into an inheritance of $300K cash told you they could think of no better way to invest the money than to invest it in you. Not the company you started, not as a loan, but invest it in YOU, as if you were a startup. In return your friend said all they wanted was 3% of your gross income for the rest of your life. Do you think you would take it?
So, would you?
My love and admiration for Purell is well documented, so sharing that love with someone else is something I cherish.
A few weeks ago, I was at the Museum of American History with the kids.
In the gift shop, I overheard a woman say, “Ugh, I left my Purell in the car.”
Not missing a beat, I pulled my vial out and offered her some.
She was thrilled!
I know the feeling of wanting Purell and, God forbid, not having it on hand.
Her two companions rolled their eyes (I’d seen that before), but we shared a special bonding moment.
I wish there was a word to describe the act I’ve committed and have seen other men do as well.
You are standing in the aisle at a grocery store and you can’t figure out which of the 5 products in front of you is the EXACT one your wife wants.
You have an 80% chance of failure.
So, you call and you are guided with laser-like precision to the right one.
There’s probably a word in German for it.
Image via Wikipedia
I had a geo-political revelation while reading Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle
Were it not for the pressure cooker situation that Israel finds itself in because of the Arab world’s intransigence and desire to destroy the country, that Israel would not have the highest rate of innovation per capita in the world.
If “necessity is the mother of invention,” then “innovate or be exterminated,” certainly raises the stakes.
So, in a great ironic twist, the constant effort to destroy and isolate Israel has actually led to Israel’s increasing wealth and sought-after knowledge/innovation.
At the end of “The Believer,” a move in which an Orthodox kid becomes a neo-Nazi, the main character says that the way to get rid of the Jews is to “love them.”
Then, they will assimilate and be no more.
So, too, the Middle East, in some way.
Israelis will tell you this, “if the Arabs made peace with us and left us alone, we’d probably kill each other in a civil war.”
So, the 50-fold increase in living standards and having more companies on the Nasdaq than all of western Europe combined…well, that’s something the Israelis owe to the Syrians, Palestinians, and the rest of the Arab world that want them gone.
Image via Wikipedia
The other day, I was invited to give the sermon at my synagogue for the portion of the week known as Chayei Sarah (lit: the life of Sarah). It corresponds to Genesis 23:1-25:18
What I did was analyze the tactics used by Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, in his quest to bring Rebecca back as Isaac’s future wife and put them in the framework of social psychologist Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion.”
Ok, so George W. Bush was the worst president in American history. A disaster and an embarrassment.
I get that.
What I’d like to know is: how long can the Obama administration and its supporters (and you know I am not one of them) say: “we inherited this mess,” or something to that effect?
At some point, it’s no longer about the problem you inherited and it is accountability for the decisions you actually make.
So, tell me…is it 1 year, 2 years, 4 years, 8 years, never?
Seriously. I want to know when the statute of limitations expires.
A few weeks back, I got some exceptional service at my car dealer, Fitzgerald Auto Mall.
I was so impressed that I interviewed the hero of the story and blogged about it.
The next day, I was back to pick up my car and I asked the 4 men in the room if they had seen the interview of their female co-worker on my blog.
One of them said, “All I saw were her ‘jimmies’ on the Internet.”
Now, it didn’t dawn on me until later, but I realized he meant breasts (I did a close-up of the logo on her shirt at the end…far from erotic, I will tell you.)
And I was really bothered by this.
Here was someone I was praising and here was a guy (who was generally nice enough to me) belittling his co-worker in a completely sexist way.
The question: what do you think I should do about it?
So an Orthodox Jewish kid becomes a neo-Nazi….
Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it’s not.
It’s the premise of the The Believer, a seriously warped movie that made me think A LOT. I really enjoyed the extremes to which your sensibilities were pushed in this one.
By taking you out of your comfort zone, you are forced to look at things in a new light and this movie did that.
So, I get a note from the Maryland Unemployment Insurance fund that because they are running low on funds (due to high claims), they are raising taxes on employers.
As a business owner, here’s how I think about it.
“Ok, it just got more expensive for me to hire someone, so I will hold back.”
Now, personally, I don’t want any employees, I prefer the Free Agent Nation (disclosure: client) model of working with sub-contractors, but when I think about margins and profitability, I see this angle and it gives me pause.
When you raise taxes on employers, you are slowing down the very process you need to speed up to get more people off unemployment.
Before I owned a home, my uncle Bob said to me that “owning a home is a pain in the ass. Something is always breaking.”
He’s right, of course, but I’ve realized I enjoy the challenge of managing the house from a systems perspective. Plumbing, electrical, etc.
When the BGE Home guy comes to do the pre-winter check of my furnace, it leads to a 20 min conversation on water heaters, gas vs. electric dryers, and furnaces. I learned so much.
I just completed a 2nd energy assessment of my house and am doing a bunch of weatherizing which will (hopefully) have a 2-4 year payback period.
I kind of feel like the captain of a ship and just have to know how all the parts work (or at least the roles they play) so I/we can make the most informed decisions.
Following up on the Unprepared Jewish Generation, we have this video of current day activity.
I’m pretty Type A and very driven.
Sometimes, however, as I’ve aged (and hopefully matured), I sit back and ask myself “hmmm…I wonder how many years I actually have left?”
I think that when we are younger we tend to believe that “I’ll live to 80 or so” and have a full life (like my grandparents did, for example.)
Of course, as we all know, life doesn’t always work out that way.
The question, of course, is how do you deal with it when it doesn’t?
Some of you knew Ned Stutman. Some didn’t. But, his approach to life (and death) is something that everyone can appreciate.
That approach is shared in his book: Facing Up: Grateful Ned's Guide for Living and Dying with Grace
Now, a bit of disclosure…I consulted on a pro bono basis to Ned’s widow, Suzanne, on how to market the book (and, if you buy the book from the link I’ll earn something like $.04)
The jacket to the book reads “What a Nazi-hunting comedian and lawyer can teach us about cherishing life at every turn.”
And it is through those multitude of unique character intersections that your perspective will be changed, I think, for the better.
His story chronicles his ordeals at multiple US cancer treatment centers, but the beauty of the story isn’t how it ends (you already know that), it’s in the journey itself.
His humor, flirting with the nurses, making a top 10 list of the benefits of having cancer (#1: you don’t have to worry about getting cancer), just show a man who has “figured out” what it means to be present.
For friends of Ned (and there are many), this book is a natural. The marketing challenge is “why would someone who doesn’t know Ned want to read this book?”
I’m biased since I knew him and he touched my life in many ways since 4th grade.
So, let’s try this…if you didn’t know Ned and you post a comment below about one experience you had that made you “more present” in your day-to-day life, I’ll pick one of the submissions and send you my copy of the book.
Then, you can tell me if you think it works for someone who didn’t know Ned.
Fair enough?
If you know any skeptics out there, here are two examples of the power and excitement of social software to build connections with our friends and family and to, in general, be more human.
Here are two moments that I experienced.
A glorious cloud formation and some beautiful fall foliage.
Once upon a time, I would have been alone in these moments.
Then, maybe, I would have snapped a pictured and emailed it to a few people…or just said “hey, I saw some great clouds the other day.”
But now, I can share those moments with others and they can participate in it, reflect on it and add their own comments.
Some may say, “why do you care?” But, I think that being a part of each other's lives in this way enriches all of us.
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