Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 29

You’re not getting old. You are just being dumb. Probably.

People are fond of saying they know they are getting old because they can’t remember people’s names like they once did.

I hear this all the time.

While it may be true that your memory can wane with age, forgetting names is not always about a decline in mental acuity:

You just know more people.

The number of people you know or have known from your twenties to your forties and beyond increases exponentially. Colleagues, neighbors, friends, friends of friends, and spouses of friends constantly come and go. You get to know your dry cleaner, mechanic, landscaper, and hundreds of other people with whom you do business and do business with you.

These people pile up quickly.

Then you get married, and in addition to all of the people in your life, you instantly absorb all of the people in your spouse’s life:

Their family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, plus all of their spouses, too.

Then you have kids and begin meeting your child’s friends and their parents. You meet the parents of children in your kids’ classes, on their Little Lague teams, and in their Scout troop, dance troops, and origami club. You meet the parents of kids in the Gay-Straight Alliance, the Air Guitar Club, and the Taco Appreciation Society.

Many of these parents have spouses, too, and you meet a bunch.

If you’re religious and attend temple, church, or synagogue regularly, the numbers get even larger.

If you’re serving in the military, the numbers get larger still.

If you work in a profession like education, medicine, or politics and interact with large numbers of people daily, often in an interpersonal way, the numbers can skyrocket.

Then you have those parasocial relationships:

People who know you because they know of you. As an author, columnist, performer, online presence, and overall public figure, I meet many people who know me better than some of my friends, but I have met them zero or maybe one time in my life.

They know the hell out of me, including my name, personal history, and favorite foods, but I have no idea who they are or why I might know them.

So yes, perhaps your memory is failing a bit, but is it possible, if not probable, that you’re forgetting names because you know or have known so many damn people?

I think so.

When you have more information to remember, you have more information to forget.

So stop declaring that you’re getting old. Stop saying those ugly words aloud. I think it’s essential.

Here’s why:

Science tells us that our brain constantly listens to us for clues about how to react and respond to how we feel, think, and live.

Announce that you’re getting old often enough, and your brain will start to believe it and take action in lots of legitimately terrible ways:

Statements like “I’m old” can trigger the limbic system, particularly the amygdala, which processes emotions like fear, anxiety, or sadness. If the statement has a negative emotional charge, it can also elicit feelings of helplessness or stress.The brain’s neuroplasticity (ability to change and adapt) responds to repetitive thoughts and beliefs. If negative self-talk is repeated, it can strengthen neural pathways associated with feelings of decline or inadequacy.If saying “I’m old” evokes worry or self-criticism, it could activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, increasing stress hormones like cortisol. Chronic stress is linked to cognitive decline and reduced brain health.The brain tends to look for evidence that supports its beliefs. If you say, “I’m old,” your brain might focus on physical or cognitive changes reinforcing this belief.Negative self-statements can reduce motivation to engage in healthy behaviors like exercise, socializing, or learning new skills—all of which support brain health. The brain may interpret the statement as a signal to “slow down” or “give up.”

When we walk around speaking negatively about ourselves — sometimes for illegitimate reasons — we help to establish, perpetuate, and solidify those beliefs.

If you see aging as a positive, glorious, and wondrous process, speak about getting old as often as you’d like. If talking about aging amounts to positive self-talk in your mind, do it all the damn time.

It makes no sense to me but to each their own.

But if you’re complaining that your inability to remember a name or face is a sign of aging, stop it. It might be, but it’s probably more a function of the amount of data you are constantly inputting on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.

Instead, maybe say:

“It’s more difficult to remember names now that I’m blessed to know so many people. What a great problem to have.”

That is a statement that your brain would love to hear.

Three leadership ideas I can get behind

Advice from Mike Lombardi regarding leadership:

Consider in advance how we will respond, not react, to adversity.Assign an assistant or teammate to monitor our body language or general temperament.Pledge to ourselves that if our team comes up short, our emotions won’t be the reason why.

I like this list a lot.

Consider in advance how we’re going to respond, not react, to adversity.

This suggests the creation of “if/then” conditions, which I do quite often.

Constantly, really.

I play out scenarios in my mind, choosing courses of action well ahead of the situation so I am prepared to do battle.

I’d like to think I learned this strategy during my collegiate debating days, but I probably internalized it much earlier while dealing with a childhood filled with verbal confrontations and relentless struggle.

Assign an assistant or teammate to monitor our body language or general temperament.

This is brilliant. As a teacher, it’s a little harder to do unless you have another adult in the classroom working with you, which is sometimes the case when we have a paraprofessional, co-teacher, or other educator working alongside us.

In those cases, I ask for feedback constantly.

The most helpful feedback I’ve ever received about my teaching came when a fellow teacher spent a day observing my instruction and told me what I was doing well and what could be improved.

Being told what I was failing to do or doing poorly was incredibly helpful, but so, too, was learning what I was doing well because it allowed me to do it more often and consistently.

Also, about once per month, I ask my students to review my performance by giving them time to write about what I’m doing well and what needs to be improved.

Looking for honesty in job performance?

Ask a kid.

Along similar lines, I’ve also been told by people that my behavior in meetings is something to behold. Unbeknownst to me, I sigh and grunt and make other expressions of disgust when dissatisfied or annoyed, which can happen quite often in a meeting.

These utterances were unintentional to me, and until they were pointed out, I had no idea they existed. I think I’ve since reduced these unintentional outbursts, but they still happen occasionally because even I notice them now.

Honestly, I don’t mind them too much. I like it when people know where I stand.

I once worked with someone who would position his chair in a meeting so that it faced away from me and in the direction of the rest of the attendees so he could watch their responses to my comments and feedback. Apparently, I am also quite blunt, direct, and pointed in meetings, and he loved watching others react to my statements.

It was, in his words, “Entertaining and hilarious.”

I’ve always known that I’m more open and direct in meetings, and I love saying the things that others are thinking but unwilling to say, but I’d never been cognizant of my impact on those around me, and I never would’ve thought their responses would be so apparent.

Happily, I had a friend who alerted me to all of this.

Pledge to ourselves that if our team comes up short, our emotions won’t be the reason why.

This suggests that we avoid becoming too emotional when our efforts are required to deliver results.

Easier said than done for many, but happily, not for me.

Just this year, I’ve learned — thanks to the insight of a colleague who knows me well — the degree to which I don’t take things personally.

It was quite the revelation for me. I had no idea.

But it makes sense. I’ve written a blog post every day for nearly 20 years. I write magazine and newspaper columns. I stand onstage, telling stories, offering opinions, and speaking with self-assigned authority. I’ve published three nonfiction books that tell people how to do stuff and are filled with my opinions and advice. I appear on podcasts espousing my expertise, and I’ve been the host of two podcasts that do the same.

While the vast majority of feedback on my work is positive, I have my critics, and because of the sheer amount of content I put out, they are — at least at times — quite numerous. While some are thoughtful and even helpful, many, if not most, are scathing, cruel, pointed, insulting, and demeaning.

Sometimes even threatening.

Often anonymous, too, because cowardice is in great supply these days.

But I never care.

I don’t take any of it personally. I never react emotionally. It never ruins my day, spoils my mood, or slows me down. It’s probably a combination of confidence and perspective:

When you’ve survived homelessness, jail, a violent, armed robbery, two near-death experiences, and the last name Dicks, an army of online trolls amount to a flea on an elephant.

If I come up short in achieving a goal — and I often do — it’s never because my emotions got in the way. I’ve either failed in my strategy, run out of time, or didn’t do what I need to do,

Lombardi’s list is good, and it likely appealed to me simply because I am already adhering to its tenets.

If his list had instead read:

Show deference to authority.Dress professionally at all times.Eat broccoli while listening to Steely Dan.

… I may not have been so enthusiastic.

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From the mouths of babes

We’re talking about the Seven Wonders of the World when one of my students asks, “Why doesn’t our country have more cool things?”

I open my mouth to extol some of the wonders of America when the student speaks again:

“Never mind that. Why does our country have so many guns?”

This was the day after a school shooting, so sadly, firearms were probably on her mind.

Also, she wasn’t wrong about our country having so many guns.  The U.S. has the highest civilian gun ownership rate in the world, with an estimated 120.5 guns per 100 people.

We have more firearms than people in the U.S.

By comparison, the second-highest rate is in Yemen, with approximately 52.8 guns per 100 people.

Less than half our number.

Canada has 34.7 guns per 100 people.

Germany and France both have 19.6 guns per 100 people.

Australia has 13.6 guns per 100 people.

The United Kingdom has 4.6 guns per 100 people.

Japan has 0.3 guns per 100 people.

She certainly wasn’t wrong, but compared to extolling the wonders of America, explaining why we have so many guns is a far more difficult question to answer.

Not complicated. Just lengthy and tragic.

And not nearly so wondrous.

Barry Manilow jingles

Barry Manilow jokingly refers to himself as the “jingle king” of the advertising world, with his early work in commercials serving as a stepping stone to his illustrious music career.

But unlike so many musicians who would prefer that people forget (or never know about) their jingle writing days, Manilow embraces it, even playing medleys of these most famous jingles in concert.

Jingles like:

Band-Aid’s “I Am Stuck on Band-Aid, ‘Cause Band-Aid’s Stuck on Me”
State Farm’s “Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There”
McDonald’s “You Deserve a Break Today”
Stridex’s “Give Your Face Something to Smile About”
Dr. Pepper’s “Be a Pepper”
Pepsi’s “Feelin’ Free”
KFC’s “Grab a Bucket of Chicken”

And his fans love it.

I am constantly, relentlessly, emphatically urging leaders and business owners, advertisers, marketers, salespeople, public speakers, and everyone else to do what others are afraid to do.

Find new ground.
Be different.
Zig when others are zagging,

Manilow does this by embracing his past, and his fans love him for it. Rather than being afraid of accusations of “selling out,” Manilow knows that these jingles are a part of Americans’ lives, and he is happy to let them know he is behind each of them.

While others hide from their forays into advertising, Manilow highlighted it.

While others are afraid, Manilow is bold.

Many of us could take a lesson from his willingness to stand where others will not.

Religion makes nothing impossible

I was recently told by a woman that, given her age, it was impossible for her to get pregnant.Knowing she’s Catholic, I found this amusing.Whether a woman is one hundred years old, celibate, or has undergone tubal ligation, the tenets of Christianity assume a belief in the possibility of miracles, and very specifically, in the miracle that pregnancy can happen even when it might seem impossible.The foundation of the religion is predicated on the principle that a virgin can become pregnant. It seems to me that a Christian woman should be the last person making assumptions about who can and cannot get pregnant.Right?When I told her this, she rolled her eyes at me and walked away, which led me to think:Not a true believer.I’m a reluctant atheist — someone who wishes he believed in a benevolent God and a spiritual realm called heaven — so given that faith has escaped me, I’m also a nonbeliever. I don’t believe in miracles, though I do believe in the miracle of human ingenuity and the occasional confluence of events that might seem miraculous but only amount to coincidence.So not miracles in the sense of virgins becoming pregnant, but something more akin to miraculous probability, logic, and inspiration.More like Coincidenaltism —  the religion I founded three years ago. It currently has four members. Want to join?But if I were a true believer, I’d need to believe anything is possible.Right?I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover three times (plus parts of the Bible many, many times), and I can attest — even as a nonbeliever — that it’s filled with miracles. If the Scriptures are accurate, God was making miracles happen all the damn time.So if I someday find faith in an all-powerful, all-seeing God, that faith will almost certainly come with the belief that anything can happen at any moment.So unlike my Catholic friend, this would therefore undoubtedly include the possibility of a woman becoming pregnant despite her advanced age, any medical intervention, or the absence of sexual intercourse.This strikes me as both wonderful and terrifying.

What am I not doing?

I’ve begun planning my goals for 2025. It’s a month-long process that includes many parts:

I solicit ideas from friends, colleagues, and even readers.I examine the goals of others for ideas and inspiration.I reflect upon the previous year to determine if I need to repeat, elevate, or remove a goal from my list.

But I also ask myself questions. I ask myself these questions throughout the year, but I am far more deliberate and purposeful in addressing these questions as the year ends and new goals must be made.

I ask myself many questions, but they all  boil down to one question, which constantly echos in my mind:

What am I not doing?

This question applies to many aspects of my life:

What am I not doing to achieve my goals?What else could I be doing to improve my chances of success?What opportunities to move forward might I be missing?

But also:

What are others doing that I should try?What do the people around me love that I might love, too?What brand new thing has appeared on the horizon that I should give a chance?

But also:

What am I not doing that I once did?What has unaccountably fallen by the wayside?What oldie-but-goodie should I bring back?

But also:

What did I miss along the way?What did I once dismiss or ignore that deserves a second look?What was done before my time that might serve me well in this time?

My recommendations:

Seek to expand and extend whenever possible.Make life new whenever you can.As often as possible, do something you’ve never done before.Constantly, relentlessly learn something new.

These are my guiding principles as I set goals for 2025.

If you are setting goals for yourself, I suggest you ask yourself these questions to help guide you along the way.

If you don’t typically set goals for yourself, consider it. It’s far too easy to move through life with wishes and dreams, thinking you’ll get to them someday.

Someday is a myth. It’s a promise not kept. The path to regret.

Someday is today.

Smarties are smarter than you think

Sometimes, a company benefits from diversification.

Apple began selling computers but expanded into consumer electronics with the iPod, then the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and services like iTunes, App Store, and Apple Music.

Amazon began as an online bookstore but expanded into e-commerce across multiple categories: Cloud computing (Amazon Web Services), entertainment (Prime Video, Amazon Studios), devices (Kindle, Alexa), and groceries (Whole Foods acquisition).

Then there are the stranger ones:

Wrigley was a soap company that began giving away chewing gum as a freebie with purchases. The gum became more popular than the soap, eventually transforming from a soap company to a gum company.

Samsung was established in 1938 as a company that deals with noodles and dried fish. It entered electronics in the 1960s, eventually pivoting entirely to become a leader in tech, semiconductors, and home appliances.

Tiffany was originally a stationery store in 1837. About 20 years later, it diversified into jewelry and eventually exited the stationery business entirely.

Dupont first sold gunpowder but later added chemicals and materials like nylon, Teflon, and Kevlar, eventually shuttering the gunpowder business for good.

Then, there are companies like Yamaha, which continues to produce musical instruments and motorcycles.

3M, which sells Post-it notes alongside medical devices, safety gear, and thousands of other industrial products.

Samsung, which builds smartphones and container ships.

Virgin, which operates in the music and spaceship business.

Then there are the companies that make one thing and have never deviated:

The Smarties Candy Company was founded in 1949 by Edward Dee, who repurposed a World War II pellet machine designed to make medicine tablets to create Smarties candies instead.

The company — currently led by Dee’s granddaughters and co-presidents Sarah Dee, Jessica Dee Sawyer, and Liz Dee —  has deliberately produced one thing and one thing only over the last 75 years:

Smarties.

While it might have been easy to diversify into other candies (or spaceships), Smarties has remained faithful to its one product. Its two plants run 24 hours a day, five days a week, cranking out more than two billion candy rolls annually, barely keeping up with demand.

Sales are up, and the company is poised to post record profits again this year.

Sometimes, it pays to specialize in one thing.

Smarties were also far ahead of their time, beginning and remaining vegan, gluten-free, and allergen-free long before those three terms and ideas even existed.

Also, thanks to its dry, compact nature and exceptionally long shelf life, Smarties are often included in emergency preparedness kits. In a zombie apocalypse, Smarties might just save your life.

I had no idea this seemingly ancient, chalky candy had such an illustrious history and was doing so well.

They really are a smart candy after all.

Brilliant comeback

I’m writing a book of advice for kids. Included in the book are comebacks that are both withering and polite.

My students love them. They use them often. They often ask me for new ones backed upon their own life circumstances.

I heard one yesterday that I will be including in the book.

One kid told another, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

The response from the target:

“No, thank you.”

Brilliant.

With three simple words, the boy said, “I’m not interested in your proposed shame, so buzz off.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“No, thank you.”

I love it so much.

Of course, it also works with supposed commands like “Go to hell!” and “Shut up!”

But I think it works even better with “You should be ashamed of yourself” because it makes a mockery of the indignation and righteousness behind those six stupid words.

I find myself wanting to do something so egregious that someone might say those six words to me just so I could say, “No, thank you.” and watch them try to respond.

I haven’t been bored in decades

I don’t understand boredom.

How is it possible in a world filled with so much possibility, opportunity, content, and beauty for someone to ever be bored?

I can’t remember the last time I was bored. It’s probably been at least four decades since I was genuinely, insufferably bored.

This is not to say that every moment of my life provides entertainment, engagement, or import, but when the universe doesn’t deliver, we should take care of business ourselves.

A meeting isn’t especially necessary or enlightening?

I have a multitude of ways to make the meeting productive for me. I bring work to the meeting. Silently craft a story in my mind. Work on memorizing a poem.

I wrote over half of “Twenty-one Truths About Love” — a novel written entirely in list form — in meetings.

A colleague likes to say he’s going to “Matt Dicks” this meeting, meaning that in anticipation of a pointless and meaningless meeting, he ensures he has something to keep him engaged and productive.

A plane ride is especially long?

I ensure I have plenty to do, from writing to movies and even napping.

You can’t be bored while taking a nap.

Watching an especially bad movie — as I recently did?

I spend my time cataloging the story’s problems and identifying ways that it could’ve been improved. I make predictions about what will happen next. I attempt to envision the filmmaker’s pitch that led to this disaster.

The closest I probably come to being bored is when I am stuck in traffic, but even then, my frustration is born from lost opportunity rather than boredom. Music, audiobooks, podcasts, and conversations with the people traveling with me all prevent boredom from ever taking hold, even when I’d very much prefer to be somewhere else.

I suspect that some jobs make the possibility of boredom more likely, but even when working at McDonald’s as a crew member and manager, I was never bored.

First, I tried like hell to be excellent at everything I did. I won the Golden Spatula Award three years in a row for producing the most burgers in timed competitions, and I worked relentlessly to set records on drive-thru service times. As a manager, I had labor and food cost goals that I was constantly trying to exceed, and I was always hunting for the next great employee.

Pursuing excellence is an easy way to avoid boredom.

But I also spent lots of time talking and laughing with people who became some of my closest friends.

But when even that didn’t work, I created games to entertain myself and others.

When taking orders via the drive-thru, coworkers challenged me to use a specific word in the conversation.

“Welcome to McDonald’s, where every day is splendiferous. Can I take your order?”
“Hi, can I take your order and get that hungry Cyclops off your back?”
“Good morning! My meow-meow kitty-cat is asleep, but I am awake and ready to take your order.”

When I ran orders out the window in the drive-thru, we would battle my colleagues to see who could offer the oddest condiment to a customer and have them accept it.

“Would you like some cream or sugar with that?” I’d ask.

“With my fries?”

“Sure,” I’d say. “Why not?”

Not every job offers this flexibility, but I bet more do than is often understood.

I recently saw a woman wearing headphones and dancing behind the currency exchange counter at the Minneapolis airport. It wasn’t anything flamboyant or excessive. She was just grooving to some beat and smiling while doing so.

She was not bored.

The ticket taker at the local AMC movie theater offers a trivia fact related to the movie you’re about to see. Nothing to give away the plot, but something that you might never know about the movie unless he had offered that nugget of wisdom.

He seems to love offering these facts to customers.

My postal carrier listens to audiobooks while delivering the mail.

I knew a bank teller who spent her days subtly rearranging her boss’s desk so that after a week or two, everything on the desk was positioned somewhere else.

Then she’d begin again.

Boredom is almost always the result of a lack of effort.

An unwillingness to try.

An inability to be creative about your time and space.

An absence of imagination.

Boring people are bored.

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Potential friend list

Years ago, I created a Friendship Application — a means of identifying the quality of a potential friend.

Looking at it now, it seems unnecessary and even counterproductive. I would never limit the number of friends I can have, and unless you’re insufferable or monstrous, I’d happily count you as one of my many friends.

A researcher recently identified me as a “super-connector”— someone with many friends and acquaintances who tends to bring people together and is intensely and deeply connected to many people.

Upon reflection — and after a two-hour interview on the subject, during which she highlighted things that had never occurred to me — I think she’s probably right. There are many reasons for this that I’ll be writing about in the future—here and, if they become numerous enough — in a book.

So I began to wonder who I might befriend if I had no limits.

In short, what dead, famous, or otherwise unreachable person would I want as a friend?

So, I’ve begun my list. My criteria is this:

The person must be a slam dunk. In the past several weeks, I have considered dozens of maybes and probables, but unless I can say for certain that I would call that person my friend, he or she is not added to the list.

I cannot add people to the list for curiosity’s sake. For example, I would love to hear the truth about the Kennedy assassination from Lee Harvey Oswald, but that desire for information is not enough to befriend him.

I’m seeking people who impress me so thoroughly that I want to spend as much time as possible in their company.

I’m deliberately avoiding people who strike me as extraordinary but would likely dominate every conversation in less-than-deal ways.

Of course, my assessment of each person is based solely upon their public persona and what I can glean from their writing, speeches, and public work. Some may seem fantastic on the outside but could be awful and monstrous in private, so this list is admittedly based on a great deal of assumption.

Here’s what I’ve got so far, listed alphabetically.

Anne FrankAparna NancherlaAudre LordeBill BurrBruce SpringsteenDouglas AdamsDulce SloanEleanor RooseveltFrederick DouglassGeorge CarlinGreta GerwigHarriet TubmanHenry David ThoreauHL MenckenJonathan SwiftLenny BruceMargaret ChoMaria BamfordMark TwainOscar WildeRachel BloomSimon de BeauvoirSophie SchollStephen KingTaylor SwiftThomas PaineVoltaire

If you have any suggestions for additions, please send them along.

If you would like to generate your own list and share it with me, that would be even better.