Wise Cracks

Did it catch your attention that OJ Simpson and Claus von Bülow made news during the same week? Claus’s ex-wife, Sunny von Bülow died December 6 at age 76, having been in a coma since she was 48. Claus was charged with making two attempts on her life. In a media circus lasting five years, he was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison. His friend Sir Paul Getty, of the Getty fortune, advanced the money for his appeal and with what has been called a better team of lawyers, Claus was exonerated. His marriage to Sunny was dissolved and he won no part of her $14 million estate.

The von Bülow case was the first major criminal trial televised in the U.S., setting a precedent for the 1995 TV ratings slam dunk of the OJ Simpson trial. After 95 million watched Simpson’s June, 1994 slow speed car chase, blacking out even the NBA Finals, it’s no wonder his subsequent televised trial riveted the nation, the longest jury trial in California history (over eight months). An estimated 150 million people watched the verdict being read.

This is the booking mug for O.J. Simpson, taken Friday, June 17, 1994, after he surrendered to authorities at his Brentwood estate in Los Angeles. Simpson was charged with two counts of murder in connection with the June 12, 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and acquaintance Ronald Goldman. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Police Department)

Exactly 13 years to the day after his acquittal in the 1995 Los Angeles murders, OJ was found guilty of 12 charges relating to a 2007 Las Vegas armed robbery. On December 5, 2008, the day before Sunny von Bülow died, Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison, presumably eligible for parole in nine years. A press conference later this morning will give the details of his sentence.

I didn’t follow the von Bülow case in the 80s, so I have no personal opinion on the golden boy’s sense of right and wrong. Simpson, on the other hand, is a psychopath in my amateur opinion — a person without conscience. In 1995, he said he didn’t do it. In 2008, he pled he didn’t know it was wrong. Commenters on one African American blog site called Simpson “ignorant,” because he didn’t learn from his mistakes in the 90s.

Sorry folks. Psychopaths do not make mistakes. To psychopaths, there is no objective right and wrong. There is only “What I do is right; anything you do that I disagree with is wrong.”

Why does this matter to normal sane people less interested in the birth of Reality TV than in getting on with our personal productive lives? The Associated press reported last week – the same week von Bülow and Simpson shared news coverage – that one in five college aged kids is mentally ill, suffering a personality disorder significant enough to impair normal function.

Counting substance abuse, the study found that nearly half of young people surveyed have some sort of psychiatric condition, including students and non-students.

We care, because in light of the fatal shootings at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech, as a society we have to decide not only what is safe and fair, but also what is humane and righteous. Seventy-five percent of these young adults are not receiving mental health care treatment. If 75% of diabetic students weren’t taking their insulin, wouldn’t we line them up every morning and march them through their blood sugar tests?

• Is it fair for colleges to mandate treatment?
• By what process would administrators be informed of who needs treatment?
• Does a school have the right to dismiss a mentally ill and untreated student?
• If a student is dismissed for mental illness, do the parents have the right to sue the school for reinstatement?
• Can the parents get the youth’s medical records sealed before seeking admission to another school?

Are you immune?

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 1 in 4 U.S. adults suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.

Look around. If your three closest friends seem ok, then it’s you.

Photos from WikiCommons

I am always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do them. Pablo Picasso

I’ve enjoyed this saying from Picasso since I first heard it. A paraphrase I found on the Internet suggested the meaning is “that’s how I learn to do them.” I prefer the mystique of Picasso’s words, but learning is part of the seduction.

Today I installed an inner tube in our wheelbarrow tire. I’m glad to have this completed, because once a tubeless tire goes completely flat, it is very difficult to inflate. You have to wrap a belt or something around the tire and pull it tight so the rubber connects to the rim. Then pump like crazy. I’m glad I learned how to do that, too.

The man at the hardware store told me how to install the tube. Pull one side of the tire outside the rim, pull the valve stem out of the rim, feed the new tube inside the rim as evenly as possible, half inflate it and massage the tire to help the tube find its seat, then finish off the air and reinstall to the barrow.

The step I didn’t mention in the above list was getting the tire back into the rim. I wrestled with it for quite awhile, but got it only not quite half way till I called for another pair of hands. I wet the edge of the tire with soapy water, and we used a long-handled screwdriver, a crow bar, a putty knife and a pair of pliers–the latter three to keep the part of the tire we’d already popped back under the rim in place till the rest could be pried over with the long-handled driver. (Mechanic’s shops have a nifty compressed air-driven tool for doing this.)

A side benefit to the tire repair effort is that in asking the hardware man whether my air-pump needed a part or replacement, he described to me how to fix it. So we have a good as new wheelbarrow and a good as new (though over 30 years old) air pump.

It is art to complete something worthwhile, something demanding creativity. I’m sure any hardware sales assistant or mechanic would agree.

Image by Ria from Pixabay

Making money online and off should be easy. And it is if you enjoy work—and know the rules.

The trouble with learning what to do is that most successful people do not know what it is they did that made them successful.

My observations while developing training and collateral materials for self-made millionaires for 12 years aroused the suspicion that they threw themselves so completely into their work, that when it became a huge success, they could not let up one bit out of fear it would crumble. They were controlling down to minutiae. In one case, the founder and president had to be forced out and an outsider brought in to save the company!

Artists occasionally fail to make a living at their art for similar reasons. They become too emotionally attached to their work. They overprice, or don’t promote largely out of attachment. Whether they simply want to keep their creation or enjoy the secondary gains of being a “starving artist,” they are invested in doing what they have always done, and doing it all themselves.

Lesson 1: You cannot succeed by yourself. At least business owners masquerade at building teams. Though that can contribute to delusions of grandeur. Face it: control freaks will not win in the end. Whether they die in loneliness or just never make it to the top, people who do not have a large team of mentors, friends, supporters, clients, coaches, or joint venturers are missing the easiest road to riches : people.

It’s not the person with the most toys who wins; it’s the person with the largest Rolodex!

Remember the best thing you learned as a four-year-old? Share! Share the work, the credit, the profit, the ideas, the burdens—and, if you can find a legitimate way to do it, the bills!

Lesson 2: Find out what works. A study out of UCLA on expertise corroborates what I saw in the millionaires I worked with. Experts were defined as people 10 or more years in their field and “at the top of their game.” The question was simple: How effectively could these experts communicate to up-and-comers the key points of their success?

The results were startling. The experts could communicate only 40% of what it was that contributed to their success. It sounds like a joke, but it isn’t—they didn’t know which 40%! In other words, 60% of what they said was essential wasn’t.

It reminds me of the old days of conventions and advancement awards. The emcee would say, “If anyone can tell you how to succeed in business, it is this gentleman. He has…(yada, yada, accomplishment enumeration).”

“First of all,” the celebrated awardee would begin, “I want to thank God.” Then continuing, a bit tearfully, “I don’t know how I got where I am today.”

About that point, I wanted my $225 back! But it gets worse.

“If you just do what I’ve done, you can have the same success I’ve had.”

OK, bozo, you just told me you can’t tell me how you succeeded. So, I’m gonna imitate all of the weirdness you are in hopes of replicating the 40% that actually made a difference? Oops, there’s 60% that’s critical that’s still missing in this scenario…

Do ball players who do not change their socks throughout the World Series play better?

Superstition is no substitute for research and testing. What wants your product or service? What will they pay for it? How many will you have to sell to earn a living? How many will you have to sell to create wealth?

Lesson 3: Change what isn’t working. Have you sat through episodes of “The Apprentice” watching a project manager lose control of his or her team, and persist in doing the honorable thing? “I delegated the task, and now I will let them complete it. I’m not going back in to micromanage.”

How many millions of dollars has that cost various participants? Delegation is good up to a point, but the youth with his finger in the dike better have a big enough finger or the whole city will flood!

What could the project manager do with a failing team?

1. step in and help
2. ask for problem identification
3. troubleshoot the problems together
4. add more team members to that task
5. change out team members—hey, it happens in the last inning of baseball games all the time, so no whining! Pulling the whole team down doesn’t win points with anyone!
6. etc.

There are dozens of variations. The bottom line is, “Correct and continue.” Don’t keep doing what you’re doing if it isn’t working! (The classic definition of insanity.)

Even a rat running a maze for cheese will stop eventually if the cheese is no longer ever at a certain point. No so the idealistic human! No! We like to remember, sentimentally, the last time we had that cheese…gouda, wasn’t it? So mellow, so creamy, with just the faintest little bite, ahhh, de-lish! So, we’re stupider than rats when it comes to continuing to do things that no longer work. I know whereof I speak; though, I hope time will bear me out that I have changed my ways.

Lesson 4: Keep the end in mind. It’s easy to get caught up in the action steps of producing or performing and focus entirely on that action. But you know what the relationship of time to tasks is, right? Tasks will always expand to fill the time allotted them for completion.

If the world is waiting for your training, or art, or music or business opportunity, how dare you spend all your time sharpening your pencils and getting ready to get ready?

Hurry to deliver!

I’m not encouraging shoddy quality, but perfection is highly overrated and a big timewaster. Do the job well enough for now, and keep improving as you go along.

Yes, I believe in excellence. On the other side, contemplate this:

You’ve just won the Olympic marathon. As the crowds hang over the coliseum railings, stretching their fingers to touch the smallest part of their new global hero, you’re running a victory lap, proudly carrying the flag of your country. You want to give something back to the fans, so you reach out your other arm to high-five as many as you can on this last lap.

• Do you slow down to slap each hand dead-center and give the most excellent eye contact and physical touch you can, or…
• Do you keep running at the same pace, hand outstretched, touching hands or fingers on a constant sweep, seeing as many eyes as you can while you pass by?

I’m asking you to simply consider both sides. The race is not always to the swift; though, in business, it usually is! The first entity with the latest, greatest idea usually wins. Nor is the race always to the meticulous; though, quality is indeed important for long-term success.

Consider: are you doing what you are here to be doing? Or are you too busy?

Image by Cindy Jones from Pixabay

What do you like to do on Thanksgiving – besides visit with family and friends, and eat? (Cooking is mandatory for some of us!)

One of my favorite memories is the after-lunch/dinner hike. If you’re lucky, it takes you through the woods where you can scoot your feet along the ground and listen to the leaves crunch. I also remember raking the yard after we ate. Making huge piles of leaves that cried out to be jumped into! (more fun when you weigh 90 pounds than 290, unless the leaves are very, very deep!)

At times we collected the prettiest leaves and pressed them in books. Or ironed them between sheets of waxed paper to coat and preserve them. Or heavily colored their forms onto paper, then pressed the waxy pages with a hot iron.

Leaves. Red, gold, green, purple…The last woo-hoo of the season. Before everything. slows. down.

And bequeaths to us winter, the rebirthing zone, where all that we knew ceases to exist and what we hope for is not yet tangible.

It’s all there in the crunching.

Image by Joe from Pixabay

Wouldn’t it be fun to see how long a list of things we’re thankful for we could make? Could you reach 10 without any effort? How about 100? If your life depended upon it, could you make a list that would reach out the door, or down the street, or across town?

When I hear others saying what they’re most grateful for, they usually mention family members, possibly friends. These are the biggies. What about the parking place you found right in front of the store on October 23rd? Or that pubic hair doesn’t accidentally sprout on your face?

There are mysteries in the human body and in the world that keep it remarkably organized, in spite of chaos theory – the idea that everything wants to implode, and it’s only by our Herculean efforts that it doesn’t.

I’m grateful for words and an aptitude for saying what I intend. And the Delete key. Which is why I’m more of a writer than a speaker, even though I love talking to groups. Editing is for me! A godsend. Literally.

The photo on this page is from a Thanksgiving with friends two years ago at the Elks’ Lodge in Sedona, Arizona. If you’re destitute, you go there for a free hot meal. If you’re not, you go there and make a contribution and eat. Or serve others, then eat. The two in the foreground are both writers whom I love.

I was privileged to sit across from a gentleman whom I learned was homeless, yet his manners spoke of a royal court. He stood and lightly kissed my hand when he introduced himself. I hope he felt as gallant as he acted during that all-too-quick lunch. He was a construction worker, living in his car and hopping job to job.  I listened intently, because he obviously had so much more to offer me than I him.

Two of my friends and neighbors are in the hospital this Thanksgiving. I’m sorry I don’t have time to visit them this special day in addition to hosting others. I’m grateful they’ll both be better soon.

What are you grateful for? What are you happy about that no one ever mentions? What’s the weirdest thing in your life you’re thankful for?

This morning I was contemplating how wonderful it is to have shoes that fit. And wood for the fireplace. Food in the fridge and pantry. Cleanliness. Good work habits. Toilets that flush. Pomegranates once or twice a year. A warm bed, even though it’s sometimes too hot. Ink cartridges.

I double-dog-dare you to make the longest list possible below. Go ahead. For what are you grateful? Say thanks by listing it…