One of The First Seth Godin Posts I Disagree With

(From Seth Godin)

"I think laziness has changed.It used to be about avoiding physical labor. The lazy person could nap or have a cup of tea while others got hot and sweaty and exhausted. Part of the reason society frowns on the lazy is that this behavior means more work for the rest of us.When it came time to carry the canoe over the portage, I was always hard to find. The effort and the pain gave me two good reasons to be lazy. But the new laziness has nothing to do with physical labor and everything to do with fear. If you're not going to make those sales calls or invent that innovation or push that insight, you're not avoiding it because you need physical rest. You're hiding out because you're afraid of expending emotional labor. This is great news, because it's much easier to become brave about extending yourself than it is to become strong enough to haul an eighty pound canoe."

NOT SO! IT IS MUCH EASIER TO ABANDON THOUGHT AND BUST ASS THAN IT IS TO OVERCOME YOUR GREATEST FEARS!!!

Personalized Licence Plates

I saw my new favorite personalized licence plate this morning in the parking structure: .



WTFWJD



   

Hilarious! Here's the real punchline: The McCain/Palin sticker directly above it on the rear window! LMAO!

Which Side Are You On?

Here's a link to a cool graphical representation of our two major political groups.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/leftvright_US.html. Take a look to help you decide what makes sense to you on each issue... I found myself jumping back and forth depending on the issue with the majority of my preferences falling to the left (but I'm not telling which ones)! You'll have to come over and enjoy a bottle of wine to find that out.

Jameson Adams

So I had to put down the dog today. He started snapping at kids. Made some significant contact on a few occasions. It's going to be different around here... we've had Vizslas for over 10 years now. No more. He was a damn good dog - they all were. Goodbye, old friend.

The Next Big Idea

For those keeping track, this makes three... Have you ever been to a crowded bar, managed to find a seat, but found yourself unable to muster a waitress to bring you drinks? Frustruated, you make your way to the bar to order but find that there is no reasonable line and you have to squeeze between patrons and other thirsty would-be patrons to place your order. You wait for eye contact with the bartender, but she so busy she's simply picking the loudest "low hanging fruit" she can. Pretend you actually get to place an order. You can't possibly carry the drinks for all 5 of your friends!

Now, fast forward the future... imagine a place where when you finally find that table, you find with it a simple digital touchscreen drink menu. You sit, immediately place your order (which is sent electronically to a queue with the bartender) and wait for the waiter/waitress to bring it to you. Instead of your first contact with the wait staff being to order, your first contact could be the delivery of your drinks! No mistakes in translation - you've entered your own order. Additionally, it would cut down on lost wait staff time where they stand and tap a pencil while you decide. Genius!

Implications for food?!?

The Brewhouse

So we "brew" coffee and we "brew" beer. Many of us love both. Some of us even like them together (think of Rogue's coffee porters or the Redhook/Starbucks espresso stout). Why not open a brewhouse that is coffee by day and beer by night? The place to go for the early risers and the place to be for the late nighters! Who's in?

The Big Idea

Hey, what's the big idea?!" Here goes... the personal computer has taken the shopping experience to a whole new level. In fact, online retailers have removed the need to leave your home and buy from the bricks and mortar store.

The Advantages:

1. No sales hassles

2. Don't have to leave the house

3. No time pressure

4. Access to research and product comparison

The Disadvantages:

1. Have to wait for product to arrive

2. No direct response to pointed questions

3. Cannot "touch" or "try on" the merchandise

4. Trust issues with online purchase / identity theft

Wouldn't the best thing be a combination of both? Why hasn't this been done? Why don't retailers have touchscreen devices located in their stores that provide customers access to information about the products availiable in the store? Retailers could provide most of the advantages of the online experience without the disadvantages of the retail experience to produce an informed sale and increase customer satisfaction.

Think about the ramifications on the wine/liquor/beer industry.

Are you being unreasonable? Congratulations.

“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”


- George Bernard Shaw

Overblown or Underrated

Overblown: The Champ, hugely popular, the one to beat. Think: Patriots, Yankees, Lakers, Tiger Woods.

Underrated: The Challenger, endearing, in pursuit. Think: Chargers, Cubs, Nuggets, Phil Mickelson.

How do these roles apply to you in the workplace? Do you want to be the Champ? Challenger? What happens when you are Overblown? Underrated?

Perhaps another way to look at it: Is it better to have to deliver a peak performance at all times or consistantly exceed expectations? Would your co workers admire you if you were a Champ? Or would they resent you? How about your boss?

Think about the loyalty of your fan base if you are a Champ vs. a Challenger. As a company, how do you best build loyal customers? Think about the competition. A Champ begs to be challenged. Is this good for business or not?

Each company and each person decides if they will be the Champ or the Challenger. Both have a place. The key is understanding which is your place and behave accordingly. No one likes a false Champ.

More Interesting Stuff on the New Social Media

Food for thought... combine this idea with Seth Godin's "Tribes" ideas below. They are both saying very similar things but in different ways. This could be one tool for breaking down the juvenile and archaic way that our HOA conducts itself. CCVS is a certainly a "tribe" albeit a very dysfunctional one. Perhaps the new social media can bring our tribe together in ways that were previously unachievable due to our size?

Looks Like Denver Homes are Good!

Denver is America's Best City to Buy a Home...

Seth Godin @ TED

What tribes are you a part of? What tribes do you need to create and lead?

The Genius of Nike

JUST DO IT. This is quite possibly the most influential slogan of all time. Its more then athletic gear, its about a life philosophy. "Just do it" is a transcendent concept that applies to everything a person can imagine. No stalling. No vacillating. No whining. No try. Only Do. The Brendan Adams trinity of Leadership, Management, and Execution is nowhere without Execution. Just do it.

New Year's Resolutions...

This is always a good idea, right? There are many things that I want to tackle in 2009. The following four items I've deemed the most important.

1. Personal: Complete our home renovation / addition. - This must be completed for our family. Meg and the boys need me be to with them, not working on the house every weekend. The projects have to stop this year. Additionally, Mom and Dad are depending on this addition for their retirement. The addition must be in place for their retirement plans to come to fruition. Additionally, this event will allow all debt to be eliminated, it will set us up with our home base through the kids high school years, it will significantly increase the value of our home, and it will improve our community by upgrading the curb appeal.

2. Financial: Eliminate debt and implement new management system. - This must be completed for our family. We have struggled with an annual cycle of getting into debt and getting out of debt for 5 years now. We must figure out how to live within our means at all times. This is a huge challenge given the larger mortgage we are bound to have as a result of the addition, however, a better management system should allow us to see mounting issues before they become overwhelming.

3. Adventure: Camp, Hike, Ski, Bike, Run, Tri. - Completing these items will keep us in shape, keep us happy, expose the kids to nature, provide opportunity to teach G&O outdoor skills, build our family as a unit, and reward us with the feeling of accomplishment that comes with overcoming physical challenges.

4. Contribution: Teach children stewardship. - As we transition into a new era of American politics and business, it makes sense to focus on teaching G&O the value of thinking beyond yourself. Undoubtedly, teaching them these lessons will create an opportunity for us to increase our own focus on stewardship, which, in turn, accomplishes several other lesser goals I have for 2009.

Some of these other less important items for 2009 are: Stay in shape, read books, journal, moderate consumption, and grow people. In order to accomplish these things, I must be: persistent, wise, thoughtful, fearless, positive, athletic, patient, empathetic, passionate, enthusiastic, pensive, mature, fun, loving, aware, relentless, introspective and holistic. Whoa. Tall order. Bring on the new year!

Too Fast

Christmas is rapidly approaching. My last grandparent just passed away. Garret is in Kindergarten. My folks are on the brink of retirement. I'm out of shape again. My project at work is almost finished. It all just happens so fast.

Obama

So it is. Thank goodness. Someone who can lead our Country into a new generation of issues. Can you imagine trusting someone to lead us into the future who lived most of his adult life without a personal computer? The Internet? Cell phones? Wikipedia? Without an understanding of the importance of the affect that the information age has had on today's workforce? These comments boarder on age discrimination, but to someone who is 72 years old, these things must just seem like incredible new tools to use. In reality, they are not just incredible tools, they have had a profound effect on our attitutes, minds, perspectives, aspirations, and visions for the future. They have transformed our approach to the world not unlike the way "The Catcher and The Rye", nuclear weapons, and television influenced the youth of the 50's. We need someone who has been shaped by these new technologies in the same way that we have in order to truly share a vision for the future.

Cow Path

One day thru the primeval wood
A calf walked home, as good calves should,
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer, the calf is dead;
But still behind he left his trail,
And thereon hangs my mortal tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way,
And then a wise bell-weather sheep
Sliding into a rut now deep,
Pursued that trail over hill and glade
Thru those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because “twas such a crooked path”
But still they follow-do not laugh-
The first migrations of that calf.

The forest became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The village road became a street,
And this, before the men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.

And soon a central street was this
In a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Followed the wanderings of this calf.

Each day a hundred thousand strong
Followed this zigzag calf along;
And over his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one poor calf, three centuries dead.
For just such reverence is lent
To well established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach.
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.

- Sam Walter Foss

Old College Thoughts

Potential? 1-11-98 B. Adams

My mind is one of a kind.
Have I been trained to find
Nothing incredibly mine
In this time?
Or is it meant to be
That I am no better then he
Who lives with out the
Desire to know the answers.
I used to think for hours on end
Of myself, the world, of men.
Could I have written that down
Knowing now what I long to know
And had the perspective of a child?
Captured in text, I’d have written
A library so that when I grew old
I could remember what it was to think freely.
And with my books as my guide,
I could skip this long ride
And directly pursue my ability.
Perhaps the ride is the pleasure,
What a sick treasure to think
That my entire life could be spent
Finding where I was when I was five.
This must be it, this confusion, frustration
Now I know what it is to be alive.

Changes? 1-27-98 B. Adams

From this day foreword all will differ
From this day back.
Will I ever have the chance again
To make such worthy friends
As the ones I’ve made to date?
It’s the chance I long to have again,
To prove that I would not spend
It the way I’ve spent this one.
No regrets, only changes.

College Thoughts - The Ann Rand Years...

Sometime in the Spring of 1995 (with constant revision and addition)

Green

Guys, girls, rapt in amazement,
Reading ancient minds.
Ever elusive
Ever inconclusive.
No religion, theory, ideal can save the riddled individual.

- B. M. Adams

I am green. Constantly confused by my thoughts and actions, I search for the answers to my inconsistency through the written thoughts composed by the thinkers of both the modern and ancient world. Never finding the answers to my specific questions, never deriving conclusions, only developing useful equations for situations who’s results may or may not assist me in the quest for the answer to my personal riddle. It is true, no religion, theory, or idea can save the riddled individual. Only conclusions drawn from private, pensive contemplation and knowledge gained from experimental scenarios can satisfy the question of the self.
To know one’s self is true confidence, which is defined by acting consistently in accordance to that knowledge. (somewhat circular reasoning) To be straight forward and consistent is to know your goals at all times and to strive to reach them, in a manner dictated by your principles, with every thought, word and, most importantly, every action. There is no place in this world for the thoughtless observer. However, observation is crucial when integrated with your goals, through your thoughts, defined as the “experimental scenario.” Now I come to the root of my problem. What are my goals…What are my principles?
Conversation is useful only to share thoughts with others or to entertain. Everything said must have meaning and must be thought about before being shared. Everyone has a goal and a method of reaching that goal, and both must be examined instantly in a conversation in order to properly express your own thoughts while edging closer to your goal, without sacrificing principle.
The individual dictates morality, to a large extent. My code of values dictates my morality; those values exist for increased happiness and the general betterment of my life. This betterment of life itself is my reason for morality, that is, my morality exists so that my life has meaning. A society without morality is self-destructive.
Some people spend all of their lives looking for that one thing that will make them ultimately happy. You’ve met those people; i.e. Mr. Wingate. Their lives are spent searching and experiencing the world. With every new experience there comes a new awareness, responsibility, and perception of greatness. Until one day, they decide that they’ve seen it all or had enough, and withdraw into their most comfortable and favorite environment (ideally). Perhaps not. Maybe they get stuck living the last part of their lives wishing they were in a place of the past, or wishing they spent more time in a particular situation. Or maybe they go on looking until they day they lay down and die. Whichever path they take, they spend the large majority of their lives accumulating knowledge and experience.
Other people spend all of their lives under the direction of a predetermined goal, never questioning its legitimacy. The lifer at Longfibre. I won't lie; these people are floaters. They float through life bouncing off of other people's lives and reacting instead of acting. I must never be a floater. I spent my teenage existence floating and up until sophomore year I still questioned myself. Should I be at the Naval Academy right now? Why can’t I organize my thoughts as I’m speaking in front of people? Why have I begun stuttering? Above all else, I should be able to communicate effectively in order to achieve my goals in the simplest and most straightforward manner. This is a principle. Greatness (both in the eyes of yourself and of others) cannot be achieved without being able to communicate your interests to others.
Nobody wants to hear someone else’s sob and no one wants to follow a self-doubting person. Was it Thoreau who said "life is about arriving at the precise point from which you started and knowing the place for the first time"? Just be the man you (and others) once thought you were, only know the reasons why. That is the difference. Confidence shows. The difference between confidence and bravado is knowledge and understanding.
On the subject of understanding the impact of my European adventure; perhaps the trip to Europe opened my eyes to so many things that I had never previously thought about that it threw my self confidence and world paradigm for a nasty loop. I could only regain these things after either a total assessment of the scope of the realizations of the trip (impossible), or a slow incorporation of them over a long period of time. I know now that this enormous self-realization had been coming for a long time. Although I had shifted to a very principle centered life, I had no goals through which to implement those principles. As my long and short-term goals continue to develop, so do I. However, I cannot ever forget the things that I learned. They will come around and contribute to my future. But to try to incorporate them into myself immediately is too much, not to mention very confusing and frustrating. I just need to incorporate the little things for a total enjoyment of the beauty that I’ve experienced. Conclusions must be drawn. Above all else, do what I want to do because I want to do it. I’m weird enough that others will be interested and will love to share my experiences with me. Avoid getting hung up on flaky people. These are the floaters or people with very dissimilar values. Either someone gets it, or they do not, or they are trying to get it. But to waste my time and energy and grief on someone who doesn’t get it is a ridiculous proposition.