Public Speaking, Stage Fright, and Beyond

The following comes to me via email from a dear friend and client.&nbsp; In the words of Mark Twain, &quot;I am&nbsp;repeating it word for word as I heard it.&quot;&nbsp; I hope it informs you as much as it informed me.&nbsp; Happy Reading, &mdash;blake.


-------------------


&nbsp;


Intriguing
piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day by Jonah Lerner, based on
a book he has written entitled &quot;Imagine: How Creativity Works.&rdquo;&nbsp; In
essence, he argues that &ldquo;Creativity is not magic, and there&#39;s no such thing as
a creative type.&nbsp; Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a
blessing bestowed by the angels.&nbsp; It&#39;s a skill.&nbsp; Anyone can learn to be creative
and to get better at it.&rdquo; 
 
Some excerpts: 
 
&ldquo;New research is shedding light on what allows people to develop world-changing
products and to solve the toughest problems.&nbsp; A surprisingly concrete set of
lessons has emerged about what creativity is and how to spark it in ourselves
and our work.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;Imagination was once thought to be a single thing, separate from other kinds
of cognition.&nbsp; The latest research suggests that this assumption is false.&nbsp; It
turns out that we use &lsquo;creativity&rsquo; as a catchall term for a variety of
cognitive tools, each of which applies to particular sorts of problems and is
coaxed to action in a particular way.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;The new research also suggests how best to approach the thorniest problems.&nbsp; We
tend to assume that experts are the creative geniuses in their own fields.&nbsp; But
big breakthroughs often depend on the naive daring of outsiders.&nbsp; For prompting
creativity, few things are as important as time devoted to cross-pollination
with fields outside our areas of expertise.&rdquo; 
 
The story makes the point that there are different kinds of creativity&mdash;the
kind that comes from sweat and hard work, and the kind that comes suddenly,
without warning, because the person in question has put himself or herself in a
position to be receptive to inspiration.&nbsp; (Apparently, relaxation helps.&nbsp; So do
booze.&nbsp; Though the combination is not a guarantee of creative genius!) 
 
Indeed, Lehrer makes the point that the human brain is incredibly adaptable and
able to be creative: 
 
&ldquo;If different kinds of creative problems benefit from different kinds of
creative thinking, how can we ensure that we&#39;re thinking in the right way at
the right time?&nbsp; When should we daydream and go for a relaxing stroll, and when
should we keep on sketching and toying with possibilities? 
 
&ldquo;The good news is that the human mind has a surprising natural ability to assess
the kind of creativity we need.&nbsp; Researchers call these intuitions &lsquo;feelings of
knowing,&rsquo; and they occur when we suspect that we can find the answer, if only
we keep on thinking.&nbsp; Numerous studies have demonstrated that, when it comes to
problems that don&#39;t require insights, the mind is remarkably adept at assessing
the likelihood that a problem can be solved&mdash;knowing whether we&#39;re getting
&lsquo;warmer&rsquo; or not, without knowing the solution.&rdquo;




KC&#39;s
View:
I&rsquo;m particularly fascinated buy the 10 rules for lighting the creative spark
offered by Lehrer; apparently, one is more likely to be innovative if one is
relaxing in a blue room located in a big city,listening or watching stand-up
comedy, after having just come home from a trip abroad.&nbsp; Go figure. 
 
At any rate, it is a fascinating piece, and it looks like a great book. 
 
You can read the entire article <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577265632205015846.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_10_1">here</a>. 
 
And you can find out more about the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Imagine-Creativity-Works-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0547386079/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1331615411&amp;sr=8-1">here</a>.

Igniting The Sparks of Innovation & Creativity

My wife received the neatest card today from our eight-year-old daughter&#39;s tutor: 

<div style="text-align: center">
<img style="width: 277px; height: 278px" src="/blogging/image.axd?picture=2011%2f3%2f1penny.png" alt="" width="363" height="435" /> 
</div>

I doubt you&#39;re quite as gobsmacked as I was when I read it, but I think it&#39;s&nbsp;breathtaking. 


As parents, of course, we expect the tutoring that Lauren receives&nbsp;to&nbsp;primarily support and&nbsp;amplify her classroom schoolwork, but this beautiful card serves as a testament to the many &#39;secondary&#39; lessons she is also learning.&nbsp; (Arguably, the lessons we learn outside the books are even more important in life, are they not?&nbsp; Of course they are.&nbsp;&nbsp;Anyone will&nbsp;win that argument 10 times out of 10 with&nbsp;half&nbsp;his brain cells&nbsp;tied behind&nbsp;his frontal lobe.) 


Several colleagues and I were beneficiaries of a very similar &#39;secondary lesson&#39; just this past week.&nbsp; 


In conversation with a beloved client, one of my teammates offered herself up to deliver a handful of additional&nbsp;days as part of a programmatic evaluation.&nbsp; The unanticipated days will require&nbsp;more research and additional focus groups, phone outbriefs and several&nbsp;1-to-1 coaching appointments.&nbsp; No small commitments, any of them.&nbsp; And not chump change to our organization, either.&nbsp; By using her here, we forfeit the opportunity to&nbsp;benefit from her efforts elsewhere. 


Unfortunately,&nbsp;our contract with this client is nearing its expiration date--and its ceiling.&nbsp; There are simply no more funds to be secured. 


But it is clear to us--and clear to this&nbsp;peerless colleague of ours--that &quot;executing this unprojected work is the right thing to do.&quot;&nbsp; It&#39;s right for the participants and right for the&nbsp;sponsoring organization.&nbsp; (Without it, we won&#39;t satisfactorily scratch our collective OCD itch.&nbsp; Several of us live by the mantra, &quot;In God we Trust.&nbsp; All Others, Bring Data.&quot;) 


So...we&#39;re doing it.&nbsp; Pro Bono.&nbsp; (Or, to give credit where credit is due, she&#39;s doing it.&nbsp; And we all support her, just as she has supported each of us&nbsp;on those occasions when we did what we believed was right, regardless the cost.) 


Throughout this offer, the client--our partner--was&nbsp;insistent about negotiating in good faith and honoring the original contract.&nbsp; They did not request the additional work and were very concerned about our offering to deliver it outside the scope.&nbsp; In my own words, they were essentially saying, &quot;We accept this with&nbsp;happy hands, appreciating immeasurably what you are doing for our people--and&nbsp;hoping that you never feel taken advantage of in our relationship.&quot; 


We do not, of course.&nbsp; And&nbsp;their attitude&nbsp;affirms that we have made the right decision and reminds us all, for the 334th time,&nbsp;that &quot;choosing the right clients&quot; is second only to &quot;choosing the right team.&quot; 


(Honey and Vinegar, indeed.&nbsp; The line of &#39;consultants&#39; waiting to serve this and similar clients is particularly long, because we all know what it&#39;s like to collaborate with bossholes and black holes for whom &quot;good enough...&quot; never is.&nbsp;&nbsp;Those vampiric sorts of relationships result in nothing less than dried-out carcasses on&nbsp;both sides of the road.) 


&nbsp;


And&nbsp;call it what you will, but reciprocity--karma--the boomerang effect--whatever...is in full swing.&nbsp; Always has been, always will be. 


This&nbsp;very week, I have been a Denzel Washington Man On Fire, absolutely&nbsp;consumed with yet another project&nbsp;that, at midnight after midnight,&nbsp;can feel&nbsp;100%&nbsp;bottomless.&nbsp; Periodically,&nbsp;I have nightmares&nbsp;where&nbsp;I&#39;m swimming through a stadium of dried black-eyed peas.&nbsp; (And not the musical kind.)&nbsp;&nbsp;Each void created&nbsp;by my hands scooping forward is&nbsp;filled the moment I draw&nbsp;them back.&nbsp; My preliminary list of &gt;30 to-do&#39;s became 40, then 50 and now stands at 76.&nbsp;&nbsp;Just as I prepare to strike items from my list, another half-dozen materialize before my very eyes. 


What&#39;s the first rule of holes?&nbsp; &quot;If you are in one, stop digging.&quot; 


I wish. 


So here we are, several of us, eyeball-deep in this&nbsp;other project and&nbsp;minding the budget like a pack of mongooses.&nbsp; A couple of the internal tasks we require are pretty amorphous, and each of the individuals focused on these tasks has been very careful to avoid letting a snack become a meal.&nbsp; (I&nbsp;have the great fortunate of being surrounded by stewards all the way down the line.) 


As I&#39;m visiting with&nbsp;these two&nbsp;particular colleagues yesterday, they both say, &quot;We&#39;ll finish our parts for free.&quot; 


&quot;I can&#39;t let you do that,&quot; I counter.&nbsp; &quot;It was my error; I mis-scoped the project and I&#39;ll take the hit.&quot; 


&quot;No, you&#39;ve done right by both of us all along the way, Blake.&nbsp; It&#39;s the least we can do.&nbsp; We&#39;ll make it up another time.&quot; 


In the end, we split things right down the middle and, as the &#39;ol song says, &quot;Four days late but right on time.&quot; 


As a direct result of their professionalism, selflessness and generous spirit, I see thousands of gallons of black-eyed peas swirling away and downward before me.&nbsp; The entire project&nbsp;can now be wrapped up in a matter of days and, thanks&nbsp;to the finest colleagues in the field,&nbsp;we&#39;ll&nbsp;squeak through in the black and rise yet again like the proverbial phoenix.&nbsp; 


&nbsp;


Believe it or not,&nbsp;every word of this&nbsp;brings me back, full circle, to that one tiny penny.&nbsp; 


The sort of penny that, today--comprised of 97.5% zinc--isn&#39;t&nbsp;even worth one cent.&nbsp; And yet, in the hands of a precious tutor, is worth its weight in gold. 


Why? 


Because this one penny,&nbsp;seemingly negligible at&nbsp;a couple grams (and hardly worth bending over to pick up in a parking lot),&nbsp;is a massive&nbsp;reminder that,&nbsp;&quot;Whoever&nbsp;can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.&quot; 


True partners,&nbsp;be they&nbsp;internal, external, professional or scholastic, absolutely nail it at both the micro and macro levels.&nbsp; 


And&nbsp;in doing so, they remind us there is&nbsp;a fourth&nbsp;way to empty the swimming pool, one that is both faster and more efficient than scooping, shoveling or&nbsp;bilging: allow the gravity of partnership to beat weight at its own game--by draining it.

One Priceless Penny

This past week I spent some time with a&nbsp;company renowned for being a &quot;high tech systems integrator.&quot; 


It got me thinking just a couple degrees differently, so I thought I&#39;d pay the perspective forward. 


So often, an organization focuses on increasing trust, improving performance, incorporating best practices, etc.&nbsp; Yet generally, these efforts occur within isolation, in silos. 


It reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein&#39;s efforts: try as he might to &#39;create life,&#39; he inadvertently created a monster.&nbsp; &quot;The law of unintended consequences,&quot; to be sure. 


My advice? 


A rising tide lifts all boats, so step back--take some time--and work, as Michael Gerber <a href="http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1281983018&amp;sr=1-1">wrote</a> so eloquently, &quot;on your business, not just in or for your business.&quot;&nbsp; (Do the latter two and&nbsp;your business is master.) 


Ask yourself, &quot;If I were to start anew, from a blank slate, how would I design my organization?&quot; rather than, as Frankenstein did, &quot;If I stitch this onto here and attach&nbsp;that to the other thing...I wonder if I can &#39;create life?&#39;&quot; 


Gerber&nbsp;articulated so thoroughly that it&#39;s rarely about what we use on hand...the &#39;additive&#39; nature of mashing things together.&nbsp; This rarely proves successful and frequently convolutes. 


Far better to reconceive your company as if you were&nbsp;the unbiased&nbsp;systems integrator:&nbsp;&quot;What do I need?&nbsp; What do I have?&nbsp; What do I lack?&quot;&nbsp; And then,&nbsp;come to terms with&nbsp;scrapping anything and everything in order to design, sequence and overlay most efficiently. 


I know it&#39;s hard, because we&nbsp;all love our binkies.&nbsp; But as a wise man once shouted, &quot;You can&#39;t expect me to revolutionize transportation and insist that I keep the horse!&quot;

The Value of Systems Integration

While literally countless important questions swirl around us every day, there are few that stimulate me as much as, "What makes a great leader?"
It's a loaded question, of course, because embedded within it is&nbsp;another question, "Are leaders born or made?"&nbsp; (The short answer, for today, is&mdash;"Yes."&nbsp; But more on that Russian doll another time.)
Leadership is such a perennially important issue and this year is no different.&nbsp; Every generation believes its time is unheralded and novel, and ours is not unique: we&nbsp;continue to live&nbsp;in undeniably tremendous times&mdash;an era of explosive growth, ceaseless change and limitless potential.&nbsp; (But again, the same could be said 4,000 years ago...2,000 years ago, and again during the Renaissance...it is no less true today.)
As always, we need great leaders and greater leadership if we are to continue progressing in fields and practices as diverse as geopolitics, science, economics, finance,&nbsp;spirituality (yes, spirituality), innovation and sustainability.&nbsp; From natural to man-made disasters in Alaska, New York, Sri Lanka and India&nbsp;to Thailand, Haiti&nbsp;and Louisiana, the importance&nbsp;and effects of leadership (or its absence) are&mdash;if we are fortunate&mdash;a broadcast away.&nbsp;
In future blogs, I commit to writing more extensively about leadership at large, but today I will limit my thoughts to the importance of formal education (e.g., the University) as a mechanism and greenhouse for creating and growing tomorrow's leaders and will then conclude with a&nbsp;rough&nbsp;table differentiating poor from great leaders.
My preliminary comments are <a href="https://charlierose.com/guests/6283">inspired today by John Sexton</a>, President of New York University ("NYU").&nbsp; My later comments are inspired by <a href="http://www.johnmaxwell.com/">John Maxwell</a>, author of 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (among other books).&nbsp; 
Though I believe there are indeed few 'new things' under the Sun, to the extent these men's ideas are held tenably together, I am to blame.
&nbsp;
Universities for Tomorrow
Describing the University for Tomorrow requires a few thousand dissertions and years of research, to be sure, so I will simply take a slipshod whack to get your mind whirring.&nbsp; You, along with millions of others who are already studying this opportunity, can do the remaining 99.9999%&nbsp;by filling in the gaps.
Fact #1: 70 of today's 85 oldest organizations are, in fact, universities.&nbsp; (Vatican City and Parliament are examples of the other 15.)
Fact #2: If you want to create a vibrant 'center of thought,' create a great university and wait 200 years.
Fact #3: The universities-within-walls which brought us this far will not lead us into the future.
<a href="http://nyuad.nyu.edu/">What NYU is doing in Abu Dhabi </a>is right on the money: it's primarily about people, programs, teaching and research (and just so happens to serendipitously be what my doctoral program was, but on steroids to the&nbsp;100th power).&nbsp; I attended the modest Union Institute &amp; University, the first&nbsp;"University without Walls" and participated in classes&nbsp;hosted in&nbsp;Brattleboro, Montpelier, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Miami.&nbsp; We regularly&nbsp;embraced eccentric&nbsp;professors on sabbaticals from the Ivy League&nbsp;who operated 'unfettered' from many of the restraints they described occurring in Cambridge, New Haven, Providence, Princeton, Philadelphia, Hanover, Ithaca and NYC.&nbsp;
...but I digress...
What&nbsp;encouraged me about Mr. Sexton's comments was the notion that&nbsp;tomorrow's university is an open, diverse, ecumenical, organic circulatory system of ideas and best practices that&nbsp;will focus&nbsp;on&nbsp;creative, exploratory thought and nuanced discourse.
I couldn't agree more.&nbsp;
Indeed, any university, even the ones mired in the past&nbsp;(the ones we revere, historically)&nbsp;are mandated to help students learn to think (and critically) for themselves.&nbsp; But&nbsp;my impression, far too often, is that university life can quickly become&nbsp;High School 2.0,&nbsp;packed to the gills with&nbsp;memorizing facts, completing rote work, regurgitating information or defending knowledge.&nbsp; Unquestionably, we should&nbsp;possess societal standards of 'minimum knowledge,' but&nbsp;I&nbsp;expect this work to occur more fully in grades K-12.&nbsp; The undergraduate years can round-out this process, but the fact that today's ACT and SAT tests still&nbsp;emphasize standardized knowledge, facts, reading, mathematics&mdash;and some writing (though many admissions boards admit they don't quite know what to do with this&nbsp;element yet)&mdash;I remain concerned that our perspectives are deficient.
While the United States is proceeding toward national standards in 48 of the 50 states, China is migrating toward a more exploratory curriculum designed to create great THINKERS and INNOVATORS rather than fact-regurgitators.&nbsp; The ideal approach is, of course, a hybrid that includes the best&nbsp;of both.&nbsp; We need a hygiene-oriented 'bare minimum' (which should be rigorous, not minimalistic; a 'threshold knowledge base' if you will) combined with strong creative and critical thinking skills.&nbsp; IQ has never been a predictor of leadership success and it never will be.&nbsp; Similarly, while&nbsp;standardized admissions are&nbsp;undoubtedly sufficient at predicting university success, they are representative solely of&nbsp;the coursework&nbsp;comprising undergraduate schoolwork&mdash;which illuminates my point and&nbsp;the&nbsp;'smallness' of what we expect today.&nbsp; Moreover, IQ&nbsp;and standardized metrics will never&nbsp;wholly predict&nbsp;a leader's ultimate&nbsp;societal contributions,&nbsp;service to humankind or&nbsp;general performance, so whatever the University of Tomorrow intends to look like, it must quickly learn to shed historic metrics in favor of indices that get at meaning, contribution and potential.
The single greatest determinant of student performance in the classroom is the teacher's expectations.&nbsp; Knowing this, we should ourselves have the highest expectations for tomorrow's teachers, educators, instructors, professors...and each and every one of them should be well-versed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect">Pygmalion Effect</a>.
Finally, the university of tomorrow should be a bastion of&nbsp;deep discourse, not soundbytes.&nbsp; Mr. Sexton described at length the disadvantage that today's thoughtful politicians start from when they find themselves embroiled in conflicts with opponents adept at dumbing down exceedingly complex issues.&nbsp; The media loves sticky slogans (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid">"It's the economy, stupid."</a>), but we must have an appetite for prolonged, nuanced,&nbsp;systemic dialogue if we are to more fully understand issues, one another and create students and leaders capable of doing the same.
&nbsp;
Poor&nbsp;vs. Great Leaders
Perhaps contary to popular opinion, the leader at the helm of such a university is not terribly dissimilar from the sort of leader who thrives in enterprise.&nbsp; In the comments of John Sexton and the work of John Maxwell, I see similar threads regarding how students, university officials and tomorrow's leaders interact with the world around them.&nbsp;
In this light, I conclude today's very embryonic blog with the following table&nbsp;differentiating 'poor' and 'great' leaders.&nbsp; I trust that it might prove handy somewhere along the line.
More on these and adjacent thoughts in the weeks to come.&nbsp;
<img style="width: 665px; height: 369px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f7%2fPoorvsGreatLeadersPDF.png" alt="" width="741" height="202" />

Leadership, the University & Poor vs. Great Leaders

On May 20, 2010 I caught a neat <a href="https://charlierose.com/search-results/?query=Nathan%20Myhrvold">episode of Charlie Rose </a>on PBS&nbsp;featuring an interview&nbsp;with Nathan Myhrvold of <a href="http://intellectualventures.com/Home.aspx">Intellectual Ventures</a>.&nbsp;
(Maybe you remember Nathan;&nbsp;he has been 'everywhere' the last couple years describing everything from IV's "mosquito-zapping laser" to their proposed "water hose&nbsp;in the sky,"&nbsp;theorized to&nbsp;minimize global warming.)
IV has been compared to "Davos...in Birkenstocks."
Whether you're creative, love people who are or fancy yourself a polymath, you'll totally dig Nathan. (Pun intended, given his fascination with paleontology and archaeology.)
It's fun, if only for a few minutes, to imagine how someone like him&mdash;and his "lab crew"&mdash;see the world.&nbsp;
Here's a great <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true">article</a> about Nathan by Malcolm Gladwell, along with a giddy <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_on_archeology_animal_photography_bbq.html">presentation</a> at TED.

Creativity & Genius: Nathan Myhrvold

I stumbled across <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/01/news/companies/dov_seidman_lrn.fortune/index.htm">an&nbsp;interesting article</a> in a recent European issue of Fortune that explores the dollar-value of corporate virtue and, in particular, trust.&nbsp; Perhaps you&#39;ll find it interesting, too. 

But can you really measure the impact of good behavior? One promising area of research is around trust. In his book, Seidman discusses Jeffrey H. Dyer and Wujin Chu&#39;s landmark 2003 study of buyer/supplier relationships among eight major automakers in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. Dyer and Chu found a strong correlation between trust and procurement costs. The least trusted buyers in the study incurred procurement costs that were five times higher than the costs of the most trusted buyers. Moreover, the least trusted companies in the study were also the least profitable. And companies that trusted each other were more likely to share valuable information like new product designs. &ldquo;Trust between companies leads to more trust,&rdquo; Seidman says. &ldquo;It sets off an upward spiral of cooperative, value-creating behaviors.&rdquo;

Valuating Corporate Virtue?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. 


We make countless decisions each and every day...every hour...every minute. 


And most decisions aren&#39;t that hard.&nbsp; We go with our gut, we experience &#39;behavioral shorthand&#39; and know how, for example, to wind our way to work each morning without even thinking about it or, in the case of tougher decisions, we think, we pray, we seek counsel.&nbsp; 


But you know as well as I do that some decisions are very, very difficult.&nbsp;&nbsp;Unimaginably gut wrenching.&nbsp; Consider the sort our President is wrestling with this very week.&nbsp; Or the sort our Supreme Court wrestles with each and every day.&nbsp; Or the sort a grieving adult-child faces as&nbsp;her dying parent is placed on life support.&nbsp; 


And some of these decisions are in the oven for months...for years.&nbsp; Indeed, they are very long in the making. 


To describe this protracted &#39;deciding,&#39; I use the analogy Decision Hill. 

<div style="text-align: center">
<img style="width: 571px; height: 214px" src="/blogging/image.axd?picture=2009%2f11%2fhillrev.jpg" alt="" width="571" height="214" /> 
</div>

The first segment of Decision Hill is the ascent.&nbsp; This is the acknowledgment that a decision, generally a complex, multifaceted one (and&nbsp;often an emotional one or one that will have &#39;tentacles&#39; affecting others or &#39;collateral effects&#39; beyond our immediate imagination) needs to be made.&nbsp; Consider a neophyte playing chess with a grandmaster or a naive child wandering alone in the dark.&nbsp; Neither is fully aware of the errors of his/her ways, much less the unknown and&nbsp;potentially devastating consequences that might follow an initial, innocent, well-intentioned&nbsp;mis-step.&nbsp; In fact, consider the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy...or the pre-strike intelligence the NSA&nbsp;possessed on terrorists&nbsp;before the horrors of 9/11 in NYC.&nbsp; Neither of these examples represent one huge&nbsp;or glaringly obvious oversight on anyone&#39;s part so much as an incremental, microscopic accumulation of residue...of tiny error after tiny error which, in the particulate, seem invisible, yet in the aggregate, seem enormous. 


The ascent takes a very, very long time. 


We wrestle with complexities.&nbsp; With our emotions.&nbsp; With possible outcomes.&nbsp; We recall the past, we look to the future, we strategize, we visualize moves and countermoves, we think of the people who will be affected by our choices, we fall to our knees, we seek others&#39; counsel, we T-chart the pros and cons, we flip coins, we toss coins in fountains, we wander and wonder, we rule things in and rule things out, we sleep on it, we eliminate outliers and finally...finally...after the grueling and the slogging and the swinging and the fighting and the traversing many meters to the top...we arrive, crestfallen, at the apex of Decision Hill. 


And we straddle the tippy-top of this mountain.&nbsp; We feel its enormity beneath and around us.&nbsp; We accept the hollowness within us.&nbsp; We long for the connectedness and renewal around us.&nbsp; And we stare into the fog and darkness and storm and wonder if the heavens are with us.&nbsp; 


And we decide. 


In an instant. 


After the weeks and months or even years that preceded, we finally, exultingly, make a choice. 


And this choice brings us -- in that singular moment -- from our ascension...to the second segment of our climb...the tipping point. 


The slow boil is now a gas. 


And with the clarity that cuts through the&nbsp;night like a knife through warm butter, we turn our eyes finally and fully toward the future. 


The angst of deciding is behind us. 


And we feel luminescent.&nbsp; And buoyant.&nbsp; And&nbsp;human again. 


The weights slip off our shoulders, the bodice around our chest is loosed, the vice around our mind is broken, the chains around our ankles and neck and wrists are shattered, and we fall forward toward our destiny. 


Like the child awaking to a pure and powdery snow on Christmas morning, it is the dawning of a bright, shiny, wondrous, clean, perfect day. 


And we fall face-down upon our sled, grab the handles with&nbsp;shaky hands, and&nbsp;are restored and renewed.&nbsp; We are officially in segment three: the descent. 


Beloved gravity will do the rest.&nbsp; Slowly, crunching...then quickly, now skittering...we gather speed and momentum and inertia and velocity...and we arrive, startlingly soon,&nbsp;at the bottom of the hill and find ourselves rocketing toward our future, snow spraying up all around us, ice crystals stinging our cheeks, laughter peeling all around.&nbsp; 


And like the shirtless, sledgehammer-wielding strongman at the summer fair, we are ready to&nbsp;slam forward&nbsp;into all the tomorrows that&nbsp;stretch out before us. 


I want to encourage you today: It will get easier.&nbsp; There is a top.&nbsp; There is another side.&nbsp; Even -- especially -- in the darkest moments of the darkest hours of the darkest days of the darkest seasons -- light shines on.&nbsp; It always will.&nbsp; It always has.&nbsp; That&#39;s the benevolent nature of light.&nbsp; It travels effortlessly and ceaselessly and swiftly across the darkest regions of the known and unknown universe to warm your skin. 


That&#39;s all there is to it.&nbsp; 


Your charge...indeed, the only toll for your journey is pure -- and simple: 


Believe 


and 


Keep Moving Forward 


God speed.

Decision Hill

On November 11, 2009 PBS's Charlie Rose welcomed Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, followed by Malcolm Gladwell&nbsp;who discussed&nbsp;his latest collection of short stories, What the Dog Saw.
I know that so very many of you are interested in their writing -- so I just wanted to share an opportunity to see them interviewed. (<a href="https://charlierose.com/videos/10400">Freakonomics</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://charlierose.com/videos/24765">Superfreakenomics</a>&nbsp;respectively.)

Catnip for Gladwellians

In conducting research recently, I came across the&nbsp;writings of Hippocrates.&nbsp; Though he is miscredited with the precise phrase, &quot;First, do no harm,&quot; he did write about abstaining from harming others -- medically or otherwise. 


I really enjoyed a few, select lines from the contemporary version of the Hippocratic Oath, and thought you might, too: 


I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon&#39;s knife or the chemist&#39;s drug. 


I will not be ashamed to say &quot;I know not,&quot; nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient&#39;s recovery. 


I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know.&nbsp; Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death.&nbsp; If it is given me to save a life, all thanks.&nbsp; But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.&nbsp; Above all, I must not play at God. 


I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person&#39;s family and economic stability.&nbsp; My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. 


I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. 


Adapted from the works of Hippocrates by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, 1964&nbsp;

Hippocrates' "Do No Harm"

I usually restrain myself from sharing recommendations pocked with four letter words, the second of which is the only vowel.
But I stumbled across <a title="gapingvoid.com" href="https://www.gapingvoid.com/">gapingvoid.com </a>last week, bought the book at B&amp;N, and read&nbsp;it last night.
<div id="imageViewerDiv">
<div><img id="prodImage" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41QbZXspduL._SS500_.jpg" alt="" width="324" height="317" /></div>
</div>
It's hilarious and, though sometimes blue, full of great career advice for the 'creative thinker' or 'entrepreneur.'
i.e., You.

A Quirky Little Treasure in Alpine, TX

595,000 small businesses closed in 2008.1


2,500,000 jobs were lost within small businesses in 2008.2


Americans&#39; net worth increased $2 Trillion in Q2 2009 due to increasing stock prices.3


And Southwest Airlines has announced they are discontinuing lemons.&nbsp; Literally.&nbsp; No more lemons in any in-flight drinks.&nbsp; This will save them approximately $100,000 in the next twelve months.4&nbsp;&nbsp; (I remember American Airlines removed&nbsp;one olive from every first-class salad...way back in the 90s...and it saved them $42,000/year.)&nbsp; &nbsp;


As has been the case for a year-and-a-half, there continues to be sobering news, the periodic ray of hope, and examples that show the macro-consequences of micro-movements.


&nbsp;


1&amp;2Source: Small Business Administration


3&amp;4Source: ABC News