Christopher L. Hedges's Blog, page 15

The Magic Pill (7/24/14)

Media in general has done society a terrible disservice. Media has control over everything we see, and by extension it controls, through repetition of consistent messaging, what we believe. Once upon a time I lived in a country where we believed that hard work led to success. Everyone had to pay their dues, but those that were willing to struggle through the adversity were rewarded on the other side.

Media has changed that. Media’s message is no longer about hard work. The new message is take the magic pill, and after you do you will instantaneously have exactly what you want. Take the pill and the pain goes away. Take the pill and you magically shed the pounds. Take the pill and you will be the multigajillionaire.

Media has sold society on this delusional fairy tale that you get everything for nothing, and the result is society is gradually corroding away as a result of immediate gratification. You don’t need to know how to communicate properly. The bastardization of language is good enough. You don’t need to work hard because one way or another we are going to take care of you. Somewhere along the way it’s like someone came up with the largest brainwashing campaign in history that educated people on giving a mediocre effort, and being satisfied with mediocre results.

If you are satisfied with mediocrity than the magic pill may be for you, but if you are looking for success out of life there is no shortcut, there is no trick, and there is no magic pill.

Just One Person (7/23/14)

I visited my newest organization, Optimist International, as a speaker recently. Just like all of the other social organizations (Kiwanis, Rotary, Toastmasters) that I’m either a part of, or have visited this was a great group of people to spend the morning with. They’re an open and giving group of people that provide a very supportive environment.

Like any group you go to visit there are going to be people within the group that are not all that interested in listening to you speak on whatever it is you want to discuss, but you can’t focus on the negative. You may need more than I need, but I’m only looking for a connection with one person, like Diane the Kiwanian, Darren the guest I met at a Rotary club, or Sue that I met at this Optimist club meeting.

I would love to be able to connect with the entire room, but if I can find that one person to connect with than I have accomplished my objective. I realized this after my terrible Rotary presentation where I met Darren. However, it was Sue that gave me a pat on the back at her meeting and reminded me that you have to go through the bad presentations as part of the learning curve. This was a lesson that was delivered by the perfect person, a retired teacher who had to present to children  every day.

I’m still looking to develop the ability to connect with the entire room, but I’m not going to stop walking into new rooms out of some misguided fear of what someone might think of me or what I have to say. If I did that then I can only guarantee that I would miss the opportunity to connect with the one Average Joe that I was supposed to meet in that room on that day.

Your #1 Investment (7/22/14)

I don’t know if I misappropriated this statement from someone else or not, but there seems to be no lack of people who are willing to spend dollars to save pennies. There is no short supply of people who will recklessly throw money at things, and only end up with diminished returns for money spent. I know I’ve been guilty of it from time to time.

In the world of writing, just like in the world at large, there are certain areas where you can’t cut cost. For example if you can’t come up with the money to pay a good editor or book cover designer then you shouldn’t publish your book. This speaks more to self publishing than it does to traditional publishing. Your cover is your first impression, and if it’s poorly designed you are going to lose countless potential sales because no one will give it a shot. No reader will suffer through a book if his or her train of thought is broken every couple of sentences because of silly easy fixes that an editor would have caught.

In the grand scheme of things those are minor costs in comparison to the opportunity cost of losing your audience. There are areas in life that you can cut costs here and there, but investing in yourself is not one of them.

Immediate Gratification (7/21/14)

I was having a conversation with my friend Bob Turel about a project I wanted to do for a Toastmasters leadership conference. Instead of doing the same old presentation with a presenter at the front of the room just lecturing I wanted to do a small panel discussion with a decent length Q&A session at the end. I also wanted to tailor the presentation theme so that it had a wider appeal to a non Toastmasters base so that I could go out and promote my session to the general public.

In our dialogue Bob eluded to one of my biggest pet peeves, immediate gratification. More and more it seems like society wants everything yesterday without having to put any skin in the game. It made me think back to my first presentation to a Rotary Club. In my opinion I gave a terrible performance. I could try and justify my poor showing away by saying I was tweaking the speech, was on short sleep, and had been working at the airport to scrounge up cash for the book tour, but that isn’t an excuse. Part of success is having bad days, learning from them, and having a better performance the next go around.

You don’t get that from immediate gratification. That experience is reserved for those who have the strength to seek out the hard way of doing things. It’s an experience that lies on the long road that is bypassed by the short cuts taken by immediate gratification. There is no express line to success, but you can shorten the time it takes to get there by committing to do the hard work sooner. Thanks for the reminder Bob.

The Visual Rope-A-Dope (7/18/14)

Once you realize that you have a stereotype, and you know what that stereotype is you can begin to overcome any obstacles that result from it using a visual rope-a-dope.

Just like our appearance can be a powerful force in the way people stereotype you it can also be equally powerful in shattering those stereotypes. If I was just trying to classify myself as a writer I might wear a sharp tailored suit. However, that isn’t the stereotype I’m trying to break. I’m trying to overcome the stereotype that I’m not an Average Joe. Based on where I grew up, some of the people I’ve met, some of the things I’ve done, the degrees I hold, and my family’s net worth some of my friend stereotype as anything but an Average Joe.

Here’s how I combat my stereotype. I don’t wear any designer brands, and the vast majority of my cloths are broken in. I will go out to eat at a casual dining chain restaurant instead of going to a high end boutique eatery. Fortunately for me I proffer all of things that go into having an Average Joe persona, which makes my job of appearing contradictory to my stereotype easier for me to accomplish.

Just like Ali used to do in the ring let them think you are going left when in fact you are headed right. Appear contradictory to your stereotype, and defeat it in the process.

Great Minds Think Alike (7/17/14)

I was scrolling through the seemingly endless supply of junk mail littering my inbox when I came across an email for Dr Ben Carson’s book tour. I think this man is brilliant, and it has nothing to do with him being a brain surgeon. I think his brilliance lies in the simplicity and logic in which he visualizes things.

Dr Carson was coming to Tampa on May 31st, and I made it a point to go out and get his book. I also did a little snooping and analysis regarding his tour. I noticed a lot of similarities between what he was doing and what I was doing. His tour was long and he was making lots of stops along the way. His wasn’t as long as mine, but it was definitely faster paced then mine was. One other major similarity is that Dr Carson was getting the most bang for his buck. His tour was part book tour and part presidential pr campaign.

It seems like someone in Dr Carson’s camp believes that the idea of getting out and meeting people face to face, shaking hands, and becoming a flesh and blood person was more valuable than the cost of the road trip. The funny thing is we are doing the same thing, a little differently, for very similar reasons, and hopefully we will both achieve exceptional results.

Visual Based Stereotyping (7/16/14)

I’m all about efficiency. There is very little that bothers me more than when I have to endure living through inefficiency. When I was getting my MBA I literally setup my day so that there was not a wasted minute. My classes where scheduled to within minutes of each other. I actually knew how long it would take me to walk over to the gym. My workout, showering and transit to work could be clocked in at 2 hours and 30 minutes exactly on an atomic clock.

It was in this period of rigorous maintenance of punctuality that I learned about how visual clues are the quickest way to impact stereotypes. In order to shave off fractions of a second I would wear my gym cloths to class two days a week so that I didn’t have to walk back to the locker room. Well this had an impact on my statistics professor Dr G.

Dr G later told me that he reluctantly brought me on as an intern. He was impressed by my in class performance, but my attire in class left him a little skeptical. A few months after the project I was working on began a collection of interns were sitting in front of the board of directors for the client sharing the results of our findings. Nearly 15 years later the client may have been well served to follow through with our recommendations because in not doing so they cost themselves tens of millions of dollars. However, one thing I do know is that they didn’t make their decision to not follow our advice based on the way I was dressed.

Just Tell Someone You’re Getting Coffee (7/15/14)

It really doesn’t matter where I go or what I do these days, it seems like collectively society is becoming more and more self-centered and inconsiderate. I know a few months back someone felt the need to take up four parking spots with his/her car during one of the busy shopping holidays. On another occasion a woman having a conversation on her cell phone blew through a stop sign as I was crossing the intersection. Consideration really does seem to be a thing of the past.

Most recently I was an airport greeter for a local conference, and based on the professions of the attendees I wouldn’t have thought that consideration would have been an issue. You could say that customer service was actually part of the attendees job description, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way a large number of them conducted themselves.

They all had prearranged car service, which in and of itself was a logistical nightmare without them compounding the existing problems. A car delayed for a 20 minute coffee break. Another car was delayed for 35 minutes because an attendee couldn’t inform anyone that he wasn’t coming in on his scheduled flight; he would be coming in later. Rearranging three cars because two attendees couldn’t let anyone know that they were bringing their three children with them.

All minor issues if the guilty parties had only taken a minute to think about someone other than themselves for just a minute, but hay in this day in age, in my opinion, consideration is on the endangered species list and is pushing towards extinction.

Projecting Yourself to the World (7/14/14)

Being an author is an interesting place to find yourself. You are basically a solopreneur with no tangible way to monetize what it is you do. You can’t walk into the bank and get a line of credit based on hypothetical sales and work ethic. You can’t hire staff and vendors on potential. You have to wear many hats as an author, and as a result you become the foundation of your brand. You may one day be able to leverage a book series like Chicken Soup for the Soul or the Dummies series, but until then you are pretty much all on your own. Some may not agree with me but as an upstart author you are your brand.

When I began to cultivate my brand I wanted it to not only reflect who I was, but how I wanted to be perceived and how I would live my life going forward. I didn’t position myself as rich or poor, successful or unsuccessful, or high end or the discount brand. I claimed Average Joe as the image of my brand. In doing so I received a little push back from a few friends that came back with “I know who you are, and I don’t think you are too ‘AVERAGE’.”

Well they were right. I’m not average and I don’t consider myself average in any sense of the word. My friends were focusing on average and its implications of mediocrity. I was focusing on Average Joe, which is something else entirely. In my opinion Average Joe is just a person who is relatable and likable. However, this was a good example of why you need to be authentic with your brand. If you aren’t authentic someone will eventually call you on it and then you’ll only be known for the deception.

Meaning of a Name Tag (7/11/14)

Do you know where the rental cars are? Where are the Shuttle Buses at? Is there anywhere over here to get a drink? Where do I need to go for my flight? Which baggage carousel do I need to be at? Do you know where I parked at?

I found it rather amusing that I had complete strangers who thought I would have all of the answers to their questions. Now some of the answers I did have, and when I didn’t have them I pointed the person in the right direction.

So my question is does business casual with a random name tag immediately invoke the feeling of employment? I know I got myself into a similar instance when I was at Costco looking to pick up a palette of Mexican bottled Coke. I was desperate to find it because I heard from a reliable source that Coke was switching from sugarcane to high fructose corn syrup in this product line (still unsubstantiated one way or the other by Coca Cola). I walked right up to a third party vendor, and before I even finished my sentence I did a 180 thanked him, and said, “My bad. I didn’t realize you weren’t a Costco employee.”

Have we been conditioned to the point that we don’t even think anymore? Name tag…Obviously an employee. Celebrity…Rich, famous and a wonderful life. Average Joe…Mediocre?