Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 13

Beautiful but inaccurate

Poet Maggie Smith has written a poem entitled “Good Bones” that I both love and despise.

I love it because it’s a brilliant idea that I think is shared by the majority of human beings walking this planet. She has applied craft to an insight that’s real, filled with truth and vulnerability, and shines a light on a dark corner of the mind.

But I also don’t agree with a single word of it.

I don’t think it represents my truth, and honestly, I don’t think it represents an essential truth. I think Smith has captured a misguided belief held by many (and maybe most) that I push back on almost daily.

So I struggle with the poem. It’s brilliant in the way it captures the human condition so artfully and beautifully, but I don’t think any of it’s true, even though I think she and most people think it probably is.

Good Bones
by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I’ve shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI’ll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,sunk in a lake. Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.

Romantic entanglements by the numbers

A new survey of Americans’ romantic experiences found that:

70 percent of participants have had an unrequited crush53 percent have been cheated on47 percent have had a long-distance relationship38 percent have gotten back together with an ex33 percent have cheated on someone19 percent have been in a love triangle.9 percent of respondents said they had been in a polyamorous or open relationship at some point.

Some of these numbers astound me.

First, and somewhat unbelievable:

Seventy percent of Americans have experienced an unrequited crush, meaning that 30 percent have never had a crush on someone who didn’t like them back?

Have they forgotten high school?

Or life?

Not a single unrequited crush? Ever?

I suspect that 30 percent of Americans are either liars or victims of a traumatic brain injury.

As for the rest of the data, I fit neatly into nearly all categories but had wrongheadedly assumed that almost everyone did as well.

However, this is clearly not the case, given that all the percentages are 53% or less.

I couldn’t believe it.

Like 53 percent of Americans, a girlfriend has cheated on me, and like 33 percent of Americans,, I have cheated on at least one girlfriend, too. All of these things took place when I was in my late teens and early twenties, when many of us (and most of my friends at the time) were immature, stupid monsters.

Like 47 percent of Americans, I, too, had a long-distance relationship with a girlfriend when she left for college, which led, of course, to cheating.

Like 38 percent of Americans, I’ve gotten back together with an ex-girlfriend at least twice in my life, and both times, it led to a successful, happy second relationship that ended amicably and on good terms.

I wasn’t sure what a love triangle was, but according to the dictionary, it’s “a romantic relationship scenario involving three people, typically two competing for the affection of the third. It often leads to emotional turmoil, conflict, and a need to choose between competing interests.”

If that’s the correct definition, then yes, like 19 percent of Americans, I’ve experienced this a handful of times in my life, both as the pursuer and the pursued.

Based on experience, the role of the person being pursued is often far superior to that of the pursuer.

I’ve never been in a poly or open relationship, but I had opportunities to do so and passed.

Of the 80 percent of Americans who said they probably or definitely wouldn’t consider polyamory, the most common reasons cited were:

Moral opposition (50 percent)Lack of interest (50 percent)Jealousy (34 percent)Lack of emotional capacity (14 percent)

My reason was much simpler:

It sounded like a lot of fun, but I’m a minimalist and a productivity nerd. I’ve always had a lot of ambition and a lot to get done.

I couldn’t imagine finding the time to make two relationships work.

But other than experiencing unrequited crushes and having been cheated on, I am apparently in the minority of Americans in all other categories, which I still cannot believe.

You move through life thinking that everyone has lived a life similar to your own, only to find out that most people’s lives, at least when it comes to romance, are nothing like yours.

The real meaning behind “Eat the tariffs”

Let’s just be clear:

When Trump warns companies to “eat the tariffs,” as he did to Walmart last week, two things are being said:

“I am a President who believes in price controls.”

This is, at its best, a form of socialism, but more akin to communism. This is precisely what Trump criticized Kamala Harris for when she promised during her campaign to investigate companies’ alleged gouging of consumers under the guise of inflation.

Price controls are anti-capitalist, authoritarian, and the most anti-Republican thing a politician could suggest.

“I am filling the coffers of the US government with money extracted from American importers, and ultimately the American people.” 

It’s important to understand that foreign nations do not pay tariffs. They are paid by domestic importers — United States companies — who then pass the cost of the tariffs on to consumers or accept less profit at the expense of their shareholders.

When Trump tells a company like Walmart to “eat the tariffs,” he’s telling the company to pay a tax and make no attempt to recoup the loss.

Pay more for the product, but do not alter prices.

When Trump then brags about the amount of money collected in tariffs, Americans must remember that this is not a transfer of wealth from one nation to another. It’s the transfer of profits from US companies to the US government, which would be fine if Trump and Congress had the courage to raise the corporate tax rate.

Instead, he demands they eat the tariffs, which take money out of businesses and the pockets of their shareholders, who are, in large part, Americans investing in their future.

Any money accrued through tariffs will come out of the pockets of importers like Walmart and will inevitably, and perhaps more quietly, be passed on to consumers, while also taking a bite out of Americans’ investment and retirement accounts.

Unfortunately, a solid chunk of Americans are not interested in learning the truth about such things because cult followers are trained to never question their cult leader.

Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid, despite the price of Kool-Aid, which a particular brand of Trump supporter does so with ignorant glee.

I may be a little too competitive

I played mini golf with Clara and Charlie on Sunday afternoon at Safari Golf — an excellent course down the road.

As we made the turn after nine holes, I tallied the scores.

Charlie had a one-stroke lead on me.

It was by far his best performance ever. A combination of excellent putting on his part and some missed putts on mine had him ahead of me for the first time ever.

He was thrilled.

So I scored four consecutive holes-in-one on the next four holes, including two incredibly difficult putts, to effectively put the game out of reach and crush his spirits.

Not an easy feat.

Four aces in a row.

Besides Clara’s miracle hole-in-one on the final hole to earn a free game, they were the only holes-in-one on the day. We played behind a couple that also failed to score a single hole-in-one all day.

But I had four in a row.

After going six over par on the front nine, I was seven under par for the back nine, beating Charlie by eight strokes.

With the threat of my son beating me in a meaningless game of mini golf, my blood ran cold, my focus sharpened, and I elevated my game to a new level and crushed any hopes Charlie had of beating me.

I stomped on his flash of momentary joy and hope because I am a monster.

Why I don’t need blackout curtains

I was advising a client based in Brooklyn on how to be a more effective, productive sleeper. Critical but straightforward things like:

Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, including weekends and vacations.Never watch television, read, or use your phone while in bed.Sleep with white noise or a white noise substitute.

These and other strategies will help most people fall asleep faster, sleep through the night more often, achieve a deeper, more restorative sleep, and awaken most mornings without the alarm clock, which is by far the best way to start the day for many reasons.

When you apply the strategies required to sleep better with relentless fidelity, you can often spend less time sleeping, which means more time to do the things you love.

Not true for everyone, of course, but for many, many people.

Most people’s sleep routines are atrocious.

“What about blackout curtains?” he asked. “Don’t you use blackout curtains to block out the sun?”

“I wake up between 4:00 and 4:30 every morning,” I told him.

“Yeah?” he said. “So what?”

I laughed.  “The earliest the sun ever rises is after 5:00 AM. The sky might be a little lighter at 4:30 AM, but the sun isn’t even on the horizon yet.”

“Really?” he said. “I thought the sun rose around 4:00 in the morning every day.”

“Even in the winter?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “The sun’s always up when I wake up, so I don’t know when it rises.”

It turns out he can’t ever remember being awake before 8:00 AM, so for all of his life, he has assumed that the sun was up around 4:00 in the morning, which is weird.

Or perhaps I’m completely normal. Maybe I’m suffering from the Curse of Knowledge — the cognitive bias in which individuals overestimate how much others understand something they know, often because they forget what it’s like not to know that information.

There are days—many of them—when I’ve set out breakfast for the kids, written a blog post, responded to emails, completed Wordle, done my pushups and situps, eaten breakfast, and played a round of golf before this guy has ever been awake.

It doesn’t mean my client needs to wake up before the crack of dawn to be successful, and waking up so early certainly doesn’t make me better than him, but it does make me feel better than him, and that’s something.

It’s also why I don’t need blackout curtains, but he probably does.

Semicolons are the worst

“Do not use semicolons,” wrote Kurt Vonnegut, who averaged fewer than 30 a novel (about one every 10 pages). “All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

I agree with Vonnegut, but I am a true evangelist:

I’ve published nine books and written three others, and I have never used a semicolon.

I make Vonnegut look like the President of the Semicolon Fan Club by comparison.

If you find a semicolon in one of my books, it was added later by a copy editor.

Not me.

I despise semicolons. I don’t trust them. They’re slippery and frustrating. Hard to use and easy to get wrong.

They’re also ugly. They make text look academic and foolish. They shout, “Hey, look at me!” when punctuation should be seen but not heard.

The sentence is a thing of beauty. Just write two sentences rather than trying to connect them with a semicolon.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

A study of UK authors shows that the semicolon is on the decline. Its usage in English books has plummeted by almost half in two decades, from one appearing in every 205 words in 2000 to one used in every 390 words today.

Further research by Lisa McLendon, author of The Perfect English Grammar Workbook, found that 67% of British students never or rarely use the semicolon. Just 11% of respondents described themselves as frequent users.

Good. Let’s get rid of the damn things.
We don’t need them.
We don’t want them.
We don’t like them.

Let them die a speedy death.

But he had your employee murdered…

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy spent last week in Saudi Arabia with Trump, announcing a partnership between Amazon and an artificial intelligence company cofounded by Saudi Arabian Prime Minister (and close Trump ally) Mohammed bin Salman.

The problem?

According to the CIA, Bin Salman is believed to have ordered the 2018 kidnapping, murder, and dismemberment of columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Bezos-owned Washington Post.

Bin Salman was also accused by Bezos in 2019 of hacking Bezos’ phone and obtaining information about an extramarital affair that the National Enquirer later published.

I’ve had some difficult bosses in the past.

A McDonald’s manager named Lou was so incompetent that his teenage employees had to work around him and behind his back to make the restaurant run well.

An unethical and incompetent principal angered me so much that I was marching down to his office with closed fists and rage in my heart when a wise and observant administrator saw me, determined something was wrong, and dragged me into an office to calm me down before I did something I would later regret.

That principal did not last long.

The manager of a sales company where I briefly worked—a weirdo named Jack—would remove his shirt and throw it into the trash can if we hit our daily numbers and encourage others, including the female salespeople, to do the same.

Some actually did.

Never me, of course, but lots of the guys and even a few of the women.

It was quite the office culture.

None of these people were good managers or leaders. Some were downright awful human beings. But I have to say:

None of them partnered with someone who had allegedly murdered one of their employees.

Granted, I don’t think any of them found themselves in the same position as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy — because no one, as far as I know, had ever murdered or ordered the murder of one of their employees — but I suspect that if someone had killed and dismembered a member of their team, even they would pass on the opportunity to go into business with the murderer.

Some things strike me as morally unambiguous, even when large amounts of money are in play.

Most people, I suspect, would draw a red line at murder.

But not Andy Jassy and Amazon.

Awe and pride and disbelief

Last Saturday, Elysha and I drove to New York City. After parking the car, we ate brunch in the world-famous Carnegie Deli before walking down the block to The Palace Theater to watch Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean, and others star in “Glengarry Glen Ross.”

I’ve eaten in the Carnegie Deli before.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see about two dozen Broadway shows in the past four years.

But sometimes I still get punched in the face by the reality of my life, as I did while eating omelets with Elysha on Saturday.

I live a brilliant, wonderful, happy, lucky life, but occasionally, a younger version of me — the one who never expected much from his life —rises up and says, “You’re in New York City with your wife! The woman you thought would never even look your way! Eating at the Carnegie Deli! About to watch an Academy Award winner perform on Broadway! Can you believe it?”

And in those moments, I can’t. I look around and can’t believe it.

That exact feeling hit me while eating omelets with Elysha in the deli. That younger version of me—living on his own since he was 18, struggling to make ends meet, wondering why he couldn’t go to college like his classmates, eventually homeless and jailed and staring down a prison sentence—sat down beside me and said, “Can you believe this? Look where you are today?”

I couldn’t believe it. I wondered, “How is this possible?”

I have a shelf in my office with copies of each of my nine published books. Sometimes, when sitting at my desk, speaking to a client, or working on the next book, the same thing happens. A younger version of me, managing a McDonald’s restaurant or working at a construction site for food money, sits down beside me, points at that shelf, and says, “Can you believe this? Look what you did!”

And no, I can never believe it. I sometimes feel like I’ve stolen someone else’s life.

It even happens in my classroom. For a very long time, I thought my dream of becoming a teacher was an impossible dream. College can seem like a million miles away when you can’t afford to turn on the heat in the dead of winter and are struggling to eat enough each day. The simple act of teaching students is a dream come true for me, so sometimes, when I’m sitting at my desk, watching my students work, that younger version of me appears beside me and says, “Look at you! You’re a teacher! You did it!”

In those moments, I still can’t believe it.

I know for many, the idea of becoming a teacher is hardly a dream come true, but when you’re 23 years old, sleeping in your car, wondering if you’ll ever sleep in a real bed again, the idea of becoming a real teacher in a real school can seem like a ridiculous, inpoissble, unimaginable dream.

I sometimes wish I could tell that younger version of me — feeling alone and frightened and hopeless — that it will be okay. It’s strange to feel sorry for someone you used to be, but that is how I sometimes feel.

I ache to tell that younger version of me that you’re going to find a way.

That’s how I felt on Saturday in the Carnegie Deli — an odd blend of awe and joy and disbelief and a little bit of sadness for the younger version of myself who could never have dreamed of being here, on this day, loving his life as much as I do.

It was nearly as much drama as I would later experience in The Palace Theater watching a brilliant actor portray a salesman ruining his life because of the same fear, loneliness, and desperation I once felt.

If you’ve struggled mightily in your life and had to fight to make a dream come true, I hope you also get visited by that younger version of yourself from time to time to remind you of how far you have come.

If you came from poverty, desperation, fear, and hopelessness, you deserve a reminder every now and then. You deserve to be reminded of how far you’ve come and how hard the road was between then and now, even if those visits are a little bittersweet.

Be as funny as possible

“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.”

– David Ogilvy

Ogilvy was a British advertising tycoon, founder of Ogilvy & Mather, and known as the “Father of Advertising.”

I love this advice. I think he’s exactly right:

Humor is often the heart of creativity. It’s when we try to be truly novel—making people or ourselves laugh with a combination of words, ideas, images, or inflection—that something new can emerge.

You can’t make a person laugh with something they expect or have heard before.
You can’t make a person laugh by remaining on safe ground.
You can’t make someone laugh with the ordinary or mundane.

Laughter is born from surprise. A collection of words, assembled and spoken in a specific way, surprises us and produces a laugh.

Surprise is born through many things:

OriginalityMisdirectionThe repurposing of something old into something newA shift in angle or perspectiveAn unforeseen comparisonThe novel use of a previously understood word or phraseThe contrast between two unexpected ideas or imagesTone, pace, volume, or pause

All of this is fertile ground for creativity. It’s where ideas are waiting to be born.

When you try to be funny, the best ideas often emerge, as David Ogilvy understood.

Sadly, when working with adults in professional and business settings, humor is often feared, discounted, or ignored. Serious people doing serious things feel the need to speak in serious ways at all times.

“We’re selling our new wiz-bang. We need to treat this moment with gravitas and solemnity.”

“We’re elevating our service to greater heights. We want our customers to know we mean business.”

“We’re launching a new initiative. People need to understand its importance.”

In so many of these instances, attempts to be funny, infuse a moment with humor, or brainstorm ridiculous and hilarious ideas in search of the best idea are frowned upon by frightened executives, cowering administrators, and nervous CEOs who think that humor signals a lack of earnestness and resolve.

It happens to me when consulting all the damn time:I propose a splash of humor, and I’m immediately shot down.I write a joke for a keynote opening, only to find it scratched out later.I suggest an amusing image for a marketing deck and watch it replaced with something flat and forgettable.I say something daring and unexpected in a meeting and watch administrators cringe.

One administrator has said to me, more than once, about my conduct in meetings:

“I don’t know how you get away with the things you say.”

Most of the time, it’s because it was funny. Amusing. Slightly daring. More honest than most.

The kind of stuff the majority of people like and appreciate.

The kind of stuff so many are afraid to say.

I’ll bet that David Olgilvy said amusing, off-beat, funny things in meetings all the damn time. I’ll bet his brainstorming sessions encouraged ridiculous ideas and hilarity. I’ll bet his rough drafts were filled with attempts at humor.

Why?

“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.”

Why positive feedback is important

I’m working with the vice president of a Fortune 500 company. She’s preparing to deliver the keynote for a product launch.

After she’s finished speaking, I begin offering feedback on the keynote. The first thing I comment on is something she did well in the first minute of the keynote.

“I don’t need compliments,” she says. “Just tell me what I need to fix.”

I tell her:

I’m not complimenting you. I’m offering you positive feedback, which is an exceptional way of improving performance for two reasons:

We often aren’t aware of what we do well, so by alerting you to this, I can ensure that you don’t arbitrarily extinguish the behavior because you don’t understand its value.By alerting you to what you’re doing well, I can improve the frequency and consistency of that behavior, thus improving overall performance.

She seems taken aback by this explanation, but after a moment, she nods and says, “Okay. Keep going.”

After I finish giving her feedback — both positive and corrective — she says to me:

“I never really understood the value of positive feedback. I think I need to change the way I work with my team.”

Now it’s my turn to be taken aback.

A vice president of a Fortune 500 company—an executive with a long and successful career in the technology sector—has just realized that positive feedback is an effective management tool.

I know this person well. She’s a good person with an impressive track record, yet she has yet to see the value in positive feedback until now.

How does something like this happen?

I think it’s this:

People get promoted into management, leadership, and administrative positions without any training in managing organizations and leading people. I see this in education all the time:

A teacher is promoted to vice principal or principal without any real training in how to run a large organization with a multitude of stakeholders and clients. As a result, they flounder and ultimately fail, or worse, they plod along, lacking any skill and bereft of any discernible vision for their school.

Sometimes they get promoted to a higher, less challenging position in some silly little office away from students, teachers, and parents.

Now that I work in the business world, I see it happening here, too. In fact, I often find myself offering clients advice on managing and leading people as much as I do on storytelling and communication.

What qualifies me to offer such advice?

Two things, I think:

First, I managed McDonald’s restaurants for more than a decade, which is perhaps the most challenging job I have ever had. Effective management strategies are essential in running a business like McDonald’s effectively and profitably, so McDonald’s offers an enormous amount of academic and hands-on management training. This includes in-house training systems, intense mentorship programs, and university classes.

In fact, many of my corporate clients know about the quality of management training that McDonald’s offers and ask me about it all the time, hoping to leverage some of my wisdom and experience for their own work.

Unlike me, they received no formal training—just a promotion alongside elevated expectations to lead a team or organization. They were not taught things like Kaizen Continuous Improvement, the Blue Ocean Strategy, Parkinson’s Law, the Peter Principle, the SWOT analysis strategy, PESTLE planning, and so many more.

Learning on the job can be a great way to acquire skills and experience, but not when your job is leading other people, and their success depends on your skill level and decision-making.

I’ve also managed a classroom of students for 26 years. Though this may seem to have little correlation with the needs of the business world, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Understanding how to manage, motivate, teach, and accommodate a multitude of personalities is critical for a teacher’s success, and it’s also critical in the business world.

My students may be ten and eleven years old, but their needs are the same as those of adults. The stakes are often lower, and the problems are often smaller, but the thoughts and feelings are the same. Failure to listen carefully, interpret communication, and find ways to help people improve is disastrous for both children and grown-ups.

You can learn a lot about the management of people by spending time in a classroom.

Another strategy taught in McDonald’s management training and college while training to be a teacher:

The value of positive feedback.

I use it relentlessly every day to help my students and clients improve and grow.

I’m hoping my client is also using it today. That conversation with my vice president client happened almost two years ago, and she has since moved on to another company. Hopefully, she’s brought that strategy to her new position because positive feedback is an essential tool in managing people, but it’s also the right thing to do.