Mom Thinks You're Lazy. Procrastinating for Fun and Profit. Reflect, Review, Re-wind.

Funny how time flies. You get your first bicycle and the next thing you know you're going to the grocery store for Senior Discount Tuesday. I was shocked when I saw that the last blog post was in November. What happened? As always, there's a story there.

To begin with, there was the cancer thing. Then, things got serious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had a quick surgery for thyroid cancer. Got that out of the way. (Maybe I'll have more to say about that later, but for now, that's all. Over and out.)

Then, I decided to get really focused on starting another company. If you've never done it, that takes a good deal of time, energy, and attention. There'll be a lot more to say on that subject as well, later. Suffice to say that after almost a year of working on that idea, I decided to move on.

However, during the process of developing that company another interesting tech project came along.  I've been working on it also. Very time consuming and very interesting.

In the middle of all of that, we moved three times. Once, to San Francisco. Once, from one apartment to another in SF. And once, away from SF. I know, I know. Some people never learn.

The point is that life is what happens while you're making other plans (to quote a famous philosopher). It's easy to be too busy to get the important things done. It's easy to get confused about what's important and what's not. It's easy to take the path of least resistance. Duh and DOH! (That's why it's called the Path of Least Resistance. It's science, B****.)

Does that mean that if we're doing something hard, then it must be the important thing? If we're doing the easy thing, then it's unimportant? Hint: see the blog's name.

If you're like me (or, if I'm anything like the rest of the human race), we just do what we do. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it doesn't. Sometimes it's important and sometimes it's trivial. Sometimes we need to pause and re-calibrate. Reflect, review, and re-wind. Expand and contract, so to speak. The "contract" phase is just as much a part of the process as the "expand" phase is.

So, lean in. Work hard. GO!

Also, remember to lean out. Take it easy (sometimes). Hit the PAUSE button.

10 Reasons Why You Should Be An Athlete

10 Reasons Why You Should Be an Athlete

Do you still harbor the myth of the dumb jock? No doubt, you have plenty of examples where someone is so focused on being great in a sport that they display all the characteristics of the typical dumb jock. However, there are many more examples of athletes that perform exceptionally well outside of their sport and achieve high levels of success.

Here are the Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Be an Athlete:

10. Athletes are goal-oriented. Athletes set goals – often goals that are apparently unattainable. Sometimes we call them “stretch goals.” Because of those goals, athletes also practice techniques that help them see themselves succeeding. Athletes know exactly what a win looks like. They know how success is measured in objective terms. They set up plans that move them step-by-step toward those goals and grade their performance along the way. 

9. Athletes are tenacious.  Athletes are not quitters. They play the game all the way to the end. There are two reasons for this tenacity. First, is that victory may still be within reach, even at the very last instant. The second is that character is revealed in competition and, in defeat, an athlete wants to show character. Tenacity keeps athletes in a competitive position regardless of the situation they are in.

8. Athletes are driven. Athletes have a well-developed sense of what perfection in their sport looks like and that perfection is something they want to achieve. An athlete’s work ethic is strong. They practice and drill on basic skills, enduring pain, boredom, and frustration. Athletes attempt to exceed their innate abilities. The late cycling instructor Jim Karanas used to say, “Training isn’t about getting fit. Training is about learning to overcome your self-imposed limitations.”

7. Athletes are continuous learners. Although athletes often repeat the same activities, they also find themselves having to learn continuously. Whether they are learning a new downhill course, settling into a new job assignment on the field, or studying what competitors are doing in preparation for a game, athletes find themselves absorbing new mental material all the time. This constant demand to learn new things may make athletes very opportunistic learners or “quick studies.”

6. Athletes are exceptional problem solvers. Athletes are often equipped to not only understand their individual contribution, but to see the big picture. They may have specialized skills, but they understand how they fit into the overall scheme of the team goals. This helps make them excellent entrepreneurs and problem solvers. Even athletes who are not on teams, the solo athletes, have this attribute because they are the team. They are playing all of the positions in their sport themselves.

5. Athletes understand the value of balance. Athletes understand that there’s a fine line between training and obsession. They understand what it means to burn out. Athletes train hard, play hard, stay focused and committed; they also know when to relax, take a break, and chill. Athletes know how to taper, back off on hard training, before going into a major competition. They know how to tune themselves to peak at the proper time. They know how to have fun – and when to have it.

4. Athletes work well with partners and in teams. Athletes know about respect for themselves and others. They know where and when to give credit to other members of the team. Athletes know that no matter how well they have done, there were others around that helped them achieve. Athletes know how to collaborate, compromise, adjust, and fit into a complex situation.

3. Athletes are loyal. Athletes identify with their team, school, community, country or fan base. They devote their energies not only to themselves and their sport, but to those who cheer them on also. Athletes identify with the “company flag” and wave it as ardently as anyone. They don’t “date around” or act as consultants. They’re not playing for a different team every week. Even many professional athletes continue to identify with a team that cut them, traded them, or retired them. Joe Montana is a San Francisco hero even though he finished his career in Kansas City, for example.

2. Athletes are resilient. No matter how hard they train, how hard they work, or how completely they plan, athletes experience loss, injury, pain, disappointment and failure. Athletes get knocked down literally and figuratively as a matter of course. In spite of it all, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again. They shuck the past and look to the future. Resilience has a counterweight that helps the athlete know that victory is fleeting and no sooner occurs than it is itself relegated to the past. Athletes have a sharp appreciation for the adage that, win or lose, “Tomorrow is another day.”

1. Athletes hate to lose. The therapeutic value of losing is vastly over-rated. Athletes may learn something about themselves or some aspect of their competition in losing, but beyond that, the value in losing is very low. Bill Campbell coached the Columbia University football team from 1974-1979 after having been on the only Columbia team to win an Ivy League title. His winning percentage was .231. He left coaching and went into technology, becoming a senior executive at Intuit and at Apple. He is on the Board of each company. Campbell says, “There’s not one good thing about losing. There are no lessons to be learned.” It’s hard to argue with him. Losing is painful and, even if the pain goes away, the scars are there. Athletes like to compete, true. They like to win even more. AND THEY HATE TO LOSE. Athletes will work harder, longer, with more determination and focus because they have two motivators. One motivator is the positive one. It’s the desire to win, to be the best. The other motivator is the dark one. It’s the fear of losing. It’s the fear of not being good enough. One motivator is good. Two are better.

Do yourself the biggest favor possible: become an athlete. You don’t have to be world-class, an Olympic champion, or professional. The lessons you’ll learn by being an athlete come at every level of competition across all sports activities and are of life-long value.

Is Your Congressman (or woman) a Big, Fat, Hairy Liar?

Well, they're not all big. Some are definitely not hairy. Who is really to say anything about fat one way or the other? Really, people come on. People may take offense at being called big, fat, or hairy. That sort of talk just isn't nice.

Did I say liar? For some of you, that one is harder to ignore isn't it? All you have to do is watch your favorite entertainment news source (you get that concept, right?) and hear the blather coming from these folks to get a sense that many of them have a tenuous grasp of the facts. The truth may be something they flirt with, but are unwilling to commit to in any meaningful type of relationship. They do this despite the ability of a 3rd grader with Internet access to debunk almost everything they say.

So, why do they do it? Are they really liars? Voters value the truth. Voters shun liars all the time. Lie to us and we'll vote you out or never vote you in to begin with. Just tell us the truth and you'll be richly rewarded at the ballot box. As they say in New Jersey, "Yeah, right."

Hold on a minute. Maybe those aren't actual lies. Maybe they're just specialized versions of the truth. Maybe they just view issues through magical prisms that the rest of us don't have. You can rest assured of one thing: there is always more to the story than what you're hearing from the speaker.

First, a principle. Reasonable, intelligent people can examine the same set of facts and arrive at different conclusions. It happens everyday. Hardly anything within human understanding is so binary, discrete, or black and white as to escape this principle. I'll leave finding examples that prove the rule to you. Tech may be digital, but life is analog.

Another principle. People usually tell you what they think you want to hear. Congress-people are good at this one. It is mostly how they got the job to begin with, and key to helping keep it. Entertainment news perpetuates this because of time and format constraints and because the business model feeds on it. (Entertainment news is about making money, not about having an informed public. If that's lost on you, most of the stuff I talk about will be completely meaningless to you.) The structure of the electoral system perpetuates it. (See yesterday's post.)

Third principle. Complexity drives us to seek simplicity. It happens for all of us. We seek to deconstruct the complex in an effort to better understand and cope. Very few of us can be immersed in complexity for very long or very well. Humans have a way of creating complexity and then striving to make simplicity. We talk about living a simple life. We enjoy having simple solutions to big problems. We want to walk on a straight, clear path, not a twisty one. We undo knots. K.I.S.S.

Applying these three principles, we see that even when we think we're right, someone else disagrees; if we want the whole story, we need to seek additional sources or hear other perspectives; and, we expect and need to keep it simple.

Cutting to the chase. Is your Representative a liar? In all likelihood, yes. Can he/she help it? Probably not. Can you change them? Doubtful. Can you replace them and do better? Again, doubtful unless you think hearing different lies is an improvement.

What's a person to do? Unfortunately, these days, most people just tune it out. Turn it off. Hit the delete key or the ignore button. Too many lies. Too much BS. Too much complexity.

Here's something that might help. First, eliminate all opinion-based sources of electronic "newsattainment". You need hard news, not fantasy-based talk from people trying to sway you. Gather facts. Real facts. And, do this from a wide variety of sources.

Second, compare those facts. You'll begin to see that sometimes they conflict. You will discover that some are un-factual. You'll learn to be very efficient in fact-gathering and fact sorting. You'll develop trustworthy sources for gathering them. You'll find that they can be checked and measured reliably and consistently.

Third, develop an ear for "spin". When you hear someone spouting off facts, listen for what is really being said. Understand that they aren't telling you the whole story. They probably don't know the whole story themselves.

Simplify, but avoid "dumbing down". There is a difference between simple and simple-minded. You can respect intelligence and still demand clarity and simplicity. Things can be simplified, but that doesn't mean that they will become easy.

You will be better informed. You will learn to recognize BS almost instantly. You'll become a better citizen. You probably won't get taller, slimmer, or more physically fit...but you will feel better about coping with the noise around you.

Unhappy with Congress?

You could do something about it, but chances are, you won't. Why? Well, because you're probably not unhappy about your Congress-man or -woman. Why? Well, because for decades both parties have used and abused a little trick called gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the process by which Congressional districts are drawn (and re-drawn) in an attempt to ensure the re-election of the incumbent. Once someone is in, their party wants to make sure they stay there. There are several reasons for desiring seniority - better committee assignments, more appropriations, more donations, and so on. Basically, more seniority equals more money for the incumbent and the incumbent's party. Seniority garners power, prestige, position, and pay (or for the cynics in the audience - payola).

When a district has been gerrymandered effectively, the majority of voters in the district can be counted on to vote in reliably predictable ways. That is, the district will almost assuredly remain a stronghold of a particular party's defined constituency. From a political strategy perspective, each district has a well-defined identity with a prototypical constituent. Find a candidate that closely matches the prototype's ideals and you can control that seat in Congress for a very long time.

The make up of Congress then becomes a self-perpetuating machine. Your representative is there because a majority of voters in the district voted for them. A majority voted for them because the voters in the district have been carefully aggregated into as near a bloc as is possible. Changes in who holds the Congressional seat happen in 3 ways: the representative gives up the seat for some other position (a run for governor, the Senate, private sector job, Cabinet appointment, retirement, etc); a shift in the district's demographics occurs causing a basic shift in the electoral mathematics (may cause the seat to go to the other party); the representative is defeated within his or her own party for not "representing the majority" (the representative became too liberal or too conservative or angered voters on some special issue).

You may think Congress is a mess, but you are probably not able to see what part of the mess your representative contributes. That's because you'd have to admit which part of the mess you're contributing. Self-reflection as voters is not something at which we excel. We continue to believe that we voted correctly, but that other people in other districts didn't. It's someone else's fault. Not ours. So, we get mad at Congress and lash out. Our representative feels just like we do and would fix everything if only "those other people" would help a little.

We could fix the problem if we had the will to do so. How? We could set "rational" district boundaries, make them static, and only allow them to change once every 50 years or something. Very blunt instrument sort of idea. Of course, neither party would like that idea. Special interest groups wouldn't like that idea.

The Constitution calls for "the number not to exceed one for every thirty thousand", but each state got at least one. When the U.S. population was smaller, there were more representatives per capita than there are today. Today, there are 435 voting members in Congress. There are roughly 350,000,000 residents of the U.S. That means, there is a representative for about every 800,000 folks. Imagine what would happen (OMG!) if there was a representative for every 400,000 or 100,000 or 50,000. As a point of reference, in 1960 the 86th Congress, had 437 members in a total U.S. population of 180,000,000. Proportionately, if Congress were twice the size it is currently, we'd be in the ballpark of 1960 representation.

I have no idea if that would be better or worse. Many people think Congress was great in 1960 and not great now. Are representatives over worked nowadays?

The bottom line is that Congress is what it is because we are who we are. Nothing more, nothing less. Fixing Congress is within our power because we can vote differently.  Problem is - we won't do that, probably. Fixing Congress is not within our power because membership has its privileges, including writing the rules to remain a member.

The question is: how would you solve the problem?

5 Leadership Lessons from Playing Angry Birds

Many of your friends may have moved on from playing Angry Birds. Silicon Valley millennials may being playing Dots, Minecraft, or Fruit Ninja. Maybe you don't play games on your smartphone. Maybe the idea of exploiting emotionally-charged birds to destroy green, so-called bad piggies, who are hiding in their homes and, presumably, minding their own business is repugnant to you. That Angry Birds is a game phenomenon having grown into a vastly popular brand is undeniable.

Angry Birds allows the player to use birds with specific skills to destroy a defensive structure inhabited by bad piggies. When all of the bad piggies are destroyed, the puzzle is solved and the player can go to the next level.

BUT, Angry Birds also gives you an opportunity to experience five important leadership lessons. At the beginning of each level, the player is given a team of birds with skills that are adequate for solving that particular puzzle. The birds are used in a pre-arranged order, much like a batting order in baseball.

What can Angry Birds teach you about leadership? First, a leader needs to understand the skills and key strengths of each team member. Not everyone can do the same things equally well. Learn what key strengths and talents your team members have to maximize the results.

Second, match the team to the problem at hand. In Angry Birds, you have to use the team you're given, but that team is designed to solve the problem. In real life, make sure you design your team with the skills necessary to address the problem.

Third, have a plan of attack. Take some time to study the problem and review the resources that are available to you. Make a plan - at least a high-level plan - about how to get started and how to best use the team.

Fourth, when necessary, adjust your tactics to match the skills that are available. A poor performance might create a need to adjust the expectations on other team members. An outstanding performance may present an opportunity to capitalize on a special situation. Using baseball as an example, say a batter strikes out, so the next batter up is instructed to to do something different than would have been the case if the previous batter had gotten on base. Or, maybe a batter hits a triple and now the manager sees a special opportunity to take advantage of the situation and uses the next batter's skills in a different manner.

Finally, be flexible enough to modify the plan when events don't proceed as you hoped they would. Strategy is planning, but tactics are dictated by circumstances. An especially strong, or weak, performance; or, an especially good or bad bit of luck can signal the effective leader to modify the original plan. Things may become easier than anticipated. Things may become more difficult than anticipated. Risk factors may be either heightened or lessened. The effective leader is flexible enough to see, understand, and act accordingly.

Apple Really is Smarter Than You

Face it. You really aren't as smart as Apple. You quite possibly are as smart as any given individual at Apple, even Tim Cook or Jony Ive. But, you're not as smart as the whole Apple team is.

They have many times more collective experience than you can possibly have. They have a deep history of successful execution. They have a deep history of failure. They have more data inputs and more data analysis capabilities. They come from a culture specifically designed to be smart and to sustain intelligence.

They live in a learning culture, where the expectation is to always be moving forward. They add new talent. They acquire companies to add intellectual property and power. They file patents and experiment on product developments that never get built. They kill products, even successful ones.

They also know who they are and what Apple is. As a result, they do what they do, not what someone else does or expects them to do. Although they are rarely ever on the bleeding edge of technology leadership, they're not really followers either.

They make geeky tech stuff sexy, appealing, and fashionable. They make engineering innovations look incremental and mundane, almost as if anybody could do it. A new product announcement comes along for something that no one has ever seen or is the best anyone has ever seen and it's received as just another day at the office. Almost any company in the world would be happy with just one Apple-style hit product.

You think they should offer more options, add more features, make a bigger phone, make a smaller tablet, tack on a keyboard, support Flash, increase the megapixels, include expansion ports, blah blah blah. You think the price is too high. You think the system is too closed. You think gold is silly or the colors are yucky.

It really is time to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself who has the track record here. For roughly the last 16 years, Apple has been unrivaled in designing and building great products, delivering excellent profits, and creating shareholder value. You may hate Apple or its products. You may prefer other consumer electronics or investments in other companies. Fine.

If you really think you're smarter and know better about what to do or how to do it, then get out there and get to work. We'd all love to see it. We're waiting...

5 Reasons Why You Should Play Angry Birds

Back in the old days, around 2009 or so, it seemed like everyone was playing Angry Birds. Everyone, that is, but me. My sons and their friends. Adults, teenagers, pre-teens, millennials - had their noses buried in their iPhones as they focused intently on controlling a menagerie of flying weapons. In my mind, playing was something to be avoided. I refused to get sucked in to the vortex.

A couple of years passed and, somehow, it happened. I downloaded the game and entered the world of Angry Birds. The addiction was instant. I erased all the other games on my phone. I gave up my beloved NY Times crossword. Angry Birds became my recreational activity of choice. Never mind that many of the people I knew had moved on to other diversions. For me, AB was a fun way to decompress, relax, and chill.

I got mad at myself - remembering all those times I made fun of the kids for being suckers. Thinking of all that time that I was wasting playing this maddening game. Frustrated by repeated failures at a given level. Obsessed by a need to achieve success and move on.

Reflecting on the dozens or hundreds (maybe thousands?) of times I've now played AB, a realization developed for me. Angry Birds can teach us a lot about performance, success and failure, and perseverance.

If you've never played, Angry Birds is essentially a set of puzzles. A player deploys a specialized assortment of angry birds individually (a team) to collapse an elaborate defense system thereby defeating the bad piggies and solving the puzzle. Each bird on the "team" gets a turn...sort of like in kickball or baseball.

What can you learn by playing? Angry Birds teaches five important lessons.

A great performance by one team member does not guarantee a win.
A poor performance by one team member does not guarantee a defeat.
There are several paths to a victory.
It ain't over, 'til it's over.
A plan is a good thing, but being flexible is critical.

Great performances are exciting and dramatic. They're fun to watch. They can be inspiring. They do not guarantee that you'll win though. Many is the team that went to defeat while a star excelled.

By the same token, a below average or poor performance can be overcome and victory gained in spite of it. Whether by luck, a great performance by someone else, or a glaring weakness in the competition, some teams find a way to overcome an individual  poor performance and win.

Victory often comes in unexpected ways. No two victories are ever exactly alike. For whatever reasons, each victory can seem like its very own special and unique experience.

For every team, in every situation that won at the last possible moment; on the last play; on the last shot; with no time remaining on the clock; in a great comeback; there was another team that lost; collapsed; choked; was defeated; that somehow stopped or fell short.

Good planning is essential, but things rarely ever go the way they're "supposed" to. You have to adjust to circumstances. Flexibility is crucial to success.