Month: May 2011

Jess Bachman (famed Author of Death & Taxes InfoGraphic) kindly corrected my Venn Fail, see both versions here.

Taken at Guerilla Cafe

I have a 2 Rules when it comes to Saying Bad thing about people.  

1: Don’t.  Unless you’d say it to their faces.  2: It never helps you to disparage another.

I’ve never publicly criticised anyone by name before, and I may regret breaking the 2nd of those rules.  But here goes:

What’s worse is that the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski didn’t condemn the move.

When this happen at the DOD, (Darleen Druyun, Boeing and the Tanker Scandal) people went to prison.

Calling this kind of behavior a Revolving door is too euphemistic and kind.  It’s corruption.  Simple as that, and the DOJ ought to begin and investigation, subpoena emails, phone records, appointment books and interviews those around the decision making process.

UPDATE:  I heard a story on NPR today about this issue, and nobody seemed sufficiently disgusted.  There was this  quote from Thomas Susman, (head lobbyist for the American Bar Association):

“I don’t like the results of saying you can’t do it,” he says. “And so, therefore, I suspect I’m willing to live with public perception, you know, of cronyism, and the occasional situation where it actually proves detrimental to the public good.”

So let me see, Mr Susman, doesn’t like limiting the career potential of 1 individual even when it might prove detrimental to the public good...You know, in regulating wall street, we’ve made insider trading illegal becuase it is detrimental to the public good, even though it limits some individuals career opportunities!

Clearly, this is non-sense.  Proper Sunshine Regulations ought to suffice.  I think that a 2 year moratorium on going to work for any company that is under the jurisdiction of regulation of the Agency for which you work would be a good start.  In addition FULL DISCLOSURE of any Employment discussions ought to be required.  Meredith Baker is announcing this new position before the END of her term, which means by definition she had talks with a company that she was bound by oath to be  REGULATING about going to work for that company, WHILE SHE WAS REGULATING THEM.  Any such talks need to be disclosed.  Obivously there would need to be an ethics office that could approve certain exceptions (For Instance, the FCC regulates the wireles chips in Apple devices, which might Bar an FCC official from working at Apple.  This would follow a standard and public exemption process to the law.)

 

 

“many of the stories we tell about ourselves are wrong”.

— Heidi Grant

http://is.gd/K3dsoY

Anyone who has a strong sense of IDENTITY has it because of the stories they tell themselves about themselves. Often instead of writing their own stories, people accept others stories about themselves. This might be their spouse’s or their parents negative comments, A teacher who writes them, or later a judge who confuses their mistakes with their core character, or even something as innocuos as their favorite news pundit who is describing the world they beleive they see.  Someone who is story-permeable, might not be comfortable with their middle class life, and have aspirations of moving up into the world of the rich and famous.  Even thought the chances are slim to none that they will change their economic class in their lifetime,  they might hear a story about a group of people (the rich and famous) and Identify with that group.

This can lead people into really weird territory where they’re making less than 80k but feel the Bush Tax cuts are for them becuase one day they’re hoping to be rich and wouldn’t want to pay higher taxes.  People might spent 20 years in middle level management at a large company but they feel like a startup pioneer. Or even stronger disagreements between fact and story can occur when an semi-successful entrepeneur is running a startup that is crashing and burning, but they are convinced that they are uniquely capable of “pulling it off”.   I think the most common example of this inner story – outer reality divide is the person who continuosly makes BAD decisions that lead to terrible consequences (divorce, jail, unemployment) but are telling themselves that they can’t catch a break or that the world is set against them.  We all know someone like this, there is a specific name for the tendency:  Self–victimization

In my opinion the primary difference between people who feel REALLY good about themselves and are succesful, versus people that feel helpless is that they have taken control of the stories that they tell themselves, they examine these stories, the stories are based in geniuine self- reflection and the story teller’s have owned them. This is how a 45 year old divorced man who is late in his career achieving some success might reconcile his life and gain strength. Instead of seeing his life as a series of failures, he can tell his story as a string of obstacles that have been overcome (I’m 39 so that’s not a self reference).. In any case, my advice is to own your stories, make sure they’re somewhat true and read the linked piece above the science of Advice Giving.

It’s what you don’t know you don’t know that matters.