Socks On My Mind

Today I stepped out of my car to buy a paper and noticed something scary. I was wearing white socks and loafers. I stopped doing that in high school because it was so uncool, and now--- Who knows what's next. I called my sister with Merry Christmas on my mind and wound up sharing my horror about the white socks incident and she pointed out the only thing worse is wearing dark socks and shorts. I guess no matter how bad things are, things can always get worse. I say just shoot me if it ever gets that bad.

The question is, who will keep an eye on those things and punch my ticket when it needs to be done? No, not my dear spouse, I don't trust her with a responsibility like that--she is the sole beneficiary on my life insurance and pension, etc. I am almost afraid to go to sleep at night as it is.

I remember a novel with the plot line that someone orders a hit on himself, then wants to change his mind. Is that what would happen with me and the socks? No way! I will have taken leave of my senses if I wear dark socks and shorts, so revoking "the contract" would probably not even come to mind. Let me know if you will volunteer to cover this base and put me out of my misery if it comes to the point where I am wearing them. It's a job that needs doing.

Return Bear

He stands alone now, although I think he was already unforgettable. Again and again in 2006 he caught people off guard, until they began to fear him. Once that fear took root, they all just avoided him. Avoiding him was preferred to letting him even have the chance to beat you. Avoiding him cost people territory every time. The habit became so entrenched that nobody thought twice about the territory they were giving away. Until the mighty Colts decided they were not afraid. So, the opening kick in the 2006 Super Bowl landed right in his arms, and he taught them to be afraid again. As if they were surprised, they watched him sprint 92 yards for a touchdown. Last night, he "bearly" missed breaking Brian Mitchell's record of 13 kick returns for TD's, being stopped at the 6-yard line after returning a kickoff 79 yards. The announcers had barely finished recounting some of the highlights of his career as a kick returner, when he grabbed a punt and returned it 64 yards for a touchdown. If you get a chance, go to the Chicago Bears' web site and see the compilation of his fourteen TD's in just five seasons. As the Bears' announcers put it—he is ridiculously good. The Return Bear from Chicago.

A Christmas Carol

How many of us know the story of Ebenezer Scrooge? What do you think of when it comes to mind? I remember the old(est) movie, which dates back to 1938 and included June Lockhart in the cast. It turns out there have been seven movies, including Jim Carrey's Disney version from 2009. Whatever version comes to your mind, if you're like me, you are mostly recalling film adaptations and not the book. Oh, I know everyone remembers that it is based on Charles Dickens' novella of the same name first published in 1843. It appeared, to critical acclaim, just a few days before Christmas in 1843 (167 years ago today, in fact), and was immediately popular. You may not know this, but Dickens is credited with popularizing the term most of us have known all our lives— "Merry Christmas" (Wordplay: origins, meanings, and usage of the English language. University of Toronto Press, Robertson Cochrane 1996). Of course, he also created the terms "Scrooge" and "Bah, Humbug" that are in common usage today. But I mention all this because I have made it a practice in recent years to pick up the book itself and reread all or part of it. It is a remarkable piece of writing, and has far more depth than Albert Finney, Bill Murray or Jim Carrey provide on the screen. Pick it up and read it, if you have any time for reading this season. I think I downloaded it onto my Kindle for free as it is a public domain book.

If The Recession Is Over, Where’s That Great New Job I Was Going to Have?

Economists are unusual people, you know? There was big news last week when the Business Cycle Dating Committee met. Only economists would need to have a committee on dating and link it to the business cycle. What fun! The dismal science must be trying to upgrade itself! Now, seriously the Committee really exists to develop a consensus on the turning points of the business cycle, specifically, the beginning and end of the recessionary part of the business cycle. The real news is the National Bureau of Economic Research has declared the Great Recession ended in June 2009 (that's more than a year ago, folks). Why call it"the Great Recession?" Well, it was longer than any other since Word War II (18 months). Also, the drop in economic output (GDP) was larger than any other in that time period (4.1% drop). The point that declaring the end of the recession fails to make is that only declares when the economy hit bottom—not that things have returned to normal. Precious little solace can be found in noting that at least things aren't getting worse. We are slowly climbing our way out, and the risk of slipping backward persists. But the real question is where are the jobs? Estimates are that more than 7 million jobs were lost during this recession. Does that mean that just 7 million people are unemployed? No, there are way more than that. The number still actively seeking employment is more like 12 million (using a 9.6% unemployment rate and a total labor force of more than 132 million). Add into that number those who are discouraged and no longer actively seeking work and there are an estimated 16 million who are unemployed.

Need more bad news? Fact is this recession has had a greater effect on employment than most. Some recessions have been short enough that most unemployment was brief, and some got by with reduced hours. This time with 16 months of recession, we received 21 months of net job losses. But the government can save me can't it? What about the stimulus spending? Here's how Dave Barry puts it—"See, when the government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows w. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs."

So, should you just give up? Noooooo, just as in every recession since World War II, millions of people are being hired each month. I am not making this up. In July of this year, more than 3 million people found jobs. At the lowest point in this recession, there were more than 2.7 MM job openings. Don't believe me? Go look it up. It can be found in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover series published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov/jlt). You might also be surprised to know that, on average, more than 1.4 MM people quit their jobs each month throughout 2009. Back in 2007, the average was over 2.1 MM per month, but the fact remains there are jobs available even now.

SO how do we decide what to do? Ben Stein (of Ben Stein's Money and Ferris Bueller's Day Off fame) says this: "the indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want." Richard Nelson Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?, the pre-eminent book on finding a job, says the beginning is to answer the What, Where and How questions—what do you want to do, where do you want to do it and how will you persuade the decision maker to hire you. SO you really can't get there until you decide where you are going. Once you do, you need to know which methods for finding a job work and which do not. If you're like me, you believe that a resume is the first step, followed by the launch of a barrage of them to any employer that looks likely. Turns out that is one of the least successful methods of hunting for a job. Here are the five least effective means of finding a job today: Looking for employer's job postings on the internet, mailing out resumes to employers at random, answering ads in professional or trade journals, answering ads in local newspapers and going to private employment agencies or recruiting firms. How about the five most effective? Knocking on the door of any employer that you'd like to work for, whether they have an opening or not, Using the Yellow Pages to find employers in the field that interests you in the town or city where you want to work, then visiting the employers listed there to ask if they are hiring for the kinds of talks that you can do, asking everyone you know for job leads, joining a job club, and, doing the work of answering the three questions asked above in excruciating detail and planning your search on that basis. "But those five most effective sound so hard, " you say. Well, it's a free country; you can choose to do what you want. As P. J. O'Rourke puts it, "America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."

 

Light and Darkness

A friend of mine remarked recently that she was feeling much better. She had felt plunged into darkness for a time, and then it was like someone had turned the lights back on a couple of weeks ago and she felt much better about life. I asker her who turned the lights on and suggested it might have been her. We chatted some more about what accounts for differences in how one feels about their progress in life and whether there are gender differences in how we perceive the purpose of living etc. But the idea of living in the light vs. living in the darkness stuck with me. It reminded me of a metaphor someone once mentioned to me—the question was if the earth stopped turning, where would you want to live—on the side that was perpetually dark or the side in the light? It led me to asking myself whether I preferred morning light or late afternoon, whether gravity would cease or overwhelm us, etc., etc. It ruined the metaphor for the person speaking as it was intended to somehow make a point about caring for the environment. My point was the whole thing is impossible.

Anyway, where does that leave me on the subject of light and darkness? I guess in the same place. Light and darkness are yin and yang. One does not exist without the other. It is just as silly to deny the existence of light when we are experiencing a dark period, as it is to pretend when everything is light and happy that we won't ever have any darkness to face. Life if made up of both, as my friend later remarked-beauty is found in the interplay of light and darkness, the contrast, the shading, the combinations that seem endless. I will try to remember that the next time I'm in a dark mood.

Making a Virtue of Necessity

A friend of mine asked me yesterday. How, from a coach's perspective, is helping someone find a job for survival different from finding a job that serves one's purpose in life? My response was something like this—it likely makes a difference in what the client wants to be coached about. How to quickly network one's way into a job of some/any sort differs from making a career transition in lots of ways. If I were in a conversation with a client, I probably would have responded with a question. How is it different for the client?

To me, someone already employed, but itching for a change to a job that is—choose one—allows the client to do more of what she enjoys, is more satisfying, fits a higher purpose, allows the person to give back in some way, affords some generativity; has the opportunity to look at her life and search out those things that fit the particular need or desire that is at the root of the urge to make a change, i.e., where is this energy coming from? The authors of Don't Retire—Rewire depict in their "rewiring" process, a great step-by-step path to follow. That client can look at his life and see what drives him now, look at how he spends his time now. She can look back at her accomplishments and identify her strengths, and she can identify the possibilities and set about making it happen on her own timetable. The process can be full of endings and beginnings as he explores the possibilities. Finding one's passion isn't easy or even possible for some. There isn't time to find the perfect one thing, which takes us back to the first of the two types of job search my friend asked about—finding a job for survival.

In the survival mode, time is a major factor—the rent comes due every month, food is one of life's necessities, the bills have to be paid. Michael Gates Gill tells a great story in his book, How Starbucks Saved My Life, about the dignity of work, and the value of respect and service. He was one of those Madison Avenue 'Mad Men' who suddenly lost his job, and had his life unravel. Soon he found himself at the end of his rope. By chance, he was offered a job by a young African-American store manager at Starbucks. His book tells the story of his own transformation in the humbler life of a barista in a coffee house.

We live in a resort community and so have had, in the past; flocks of young people appear to take seasonal jobs in the tourism industry. They have usually been a mixed bag, some with lots of enthusiasm, but not a lot of skills yet. I am sure they grew from the experience and developed the skills because of that enthusiasm. They framed their work as an adventure and were having fun doing it. Others were bored, simply putting up with the people they served and they probably got little more than a paycheck from the experience. The way they framed their work was putting up with the customers so they could have the funds to have some real fun

By contrast, in today's economy, my wife observes the newcomers that have arrived for the relatively fewer, but still available, seasonal jobs, are without exception enthusiastic and eager to serve. It makes the experience of being a customer a good deal different, obviously much better. I suspect it is much the same for these jobholders, too. The value they place on having and keeping this job they are grateful to have shows up not only in how they serve their customers, but it seeps into everything about the job, including the satisfaction they get from it. The relative scarcity of these jobs reveals something that was hidden before. Customer service can be a satisfying occupation for anyone, depending upon how it is framed

Back to the person looking urgently for some type of work, overlooking the service jobs because we live in a judgmental society and no one wants to be looked down upon, as another underemployed friend puts it, is a mistake. There is dignity in work, value in service and respect. Another friend is working in a supermarket and says it's not fun. Knowing her, she will come around and begin to develop the attitude that will allow her, when she sees a friend come to her checkout line, tell her about the best new thing she's tried from the store or the great deal she saw in produce. When she translates that into how she deals with all her customers, she will turn the corner (at least that's my hope for her). So, if you need a job sooner than you can identify your purpose in life, find a store you like and apply for a service job, then make a virtue out of necessity—become an enthusiastic provider of excellent customer service. People will notice, and you'll have more fun.

 

More Positive Affect

Yesterday I ran across a column aimed at mobilizing 'olders' in support of some cause or other that I lost interest in. What intrigued me was a side comment regarding one of the benevolent effects of getting on in years. It seems that researchers have learned that the older you are, the less likely you are to remember unpleasant emotions. You mellow out in some way because your emotional memories tend more to be positive. You experience less negative emotion, pay less attention to negative emotional stimuli and remember less negative emotional materials (Mara Mather, et al. "Amygdala Responses to Emotionally Valenced Stimuli In Older and Younger Adults," 2004) .

It turns out, the theory goes, that consciousness of the shortness of time you have left causes this. At 25, you expect to live forever, but at 55, you have started to wonder. This is a fundamental pillar of socioemotional selectivity theory (you knew that). Even young adults with abbreviated life expectancies display this affect. But the really neat thing is that the human brain decides it no longer has time for all that negativity. It begins selecting out and paying less attention to what is wrong with life, and focuses on what is right.

I think this can also be observed in the focus on generativity that begins to appear in "olders" (you know who you are, olders). Simply put generativity is "a concern for establishing and guiding the next generation." Erik Erikson, eminent psychologist of the latter half of the 20th century, coined the term in studying the aging process. It finds expression in things like "making a difference," "leaving a legacy" and "giving back." Suddenly, it become important to leave a positive mark, to guide the next generation in the right direction.

What better way is there to follow this natural course than not wasting time, being positive, and providing a positive example to everyone everywhere you go.

Balloons

She waited in the checkout line, a decorated cake, some chicken and the balloons tied to her cart. Pink and blue, she thought, and she smiled. The cashier smiled back and asked "Having a party?" She smiled again and nodded. She hurried out of the store, loaded things into the car and headed home with a mission. The family would be arriving in an hour or two for the cookout she had scheduled in honor of the school year's end. She was a teacher, after all, and the end of school was understandably a cause for celebration. Good cover.

As she pulled into the driveway, she decided the balloons were first. She carefully peeled them off the inside roof of the Highlander and hurried out to tie them to the mailbox. Stepping back after tying the strings, she made sure the balloons had room to wave about and nodded her satisfaction. Grabbing the cake and the chicken from the front seat, she closed the car door and headed inside. The house needed some last-minute touches she doubted Mat would attend to...

Ninety minutes later, they turned onto the street and rolled the last quarter-mile to her place, there were cars in the drive, he noticed, they weren't the first ones here. Sheila noticed them first. "Oh no, what's going on? Those balloons are pink and blue. What are they up to?" He shrugged, "It's a party, you're making more of them than they are--just balloons." He parked the car and waited for her to join him at the end of the walk. As she reached to ring the doorbell, they opened the door, each holding a toddler. "Say Hi to your new grandma and grandpa, kids," she said as she and Mat handed the boy and girl to their new grandparents. "These are our children, tell them what you want them to call you."

Working It Out

A few months ago, I started work with a personal trainer, Kaitlen by name. We're working on making me:

• more flexible,
• stronger,
• exhibit better posture and
• become more open to the mind-body connection as explained in yoga.

The latter is Kaitlen's objective for me, and I'm going along with it in the name of learning something new. One of the things that makes the workouts easier to get through is listening to Kaitlen expound on her own special view of yoga for the common man.

Anyway, I am finding that the daily exercise (including a weekly visit with Kaitlen) is helping me think more clearly and rid myself of some of those nagging little worries, like whether I'll ever be able to sell my house and retire, or whether my son will find the career he truly wants or otherwise find his way in the world, how my daughter will adjust to life with two newly-adopted children, or whether I will maintain my independence into my eighties.

When I leave the gym, all those things seem to have been worked out. I feel better, I walk straighter, I breathe more deeply, and I can sense that all of the worries will resolve without me having to obsess about them. I can't breathe the past or breathe the future, I can only breathe the present. So I plan to keep breathing today.

Super Bowl

OK, by now you've gotten over the shock of the Saints' victory after a generation or two of failing. I'm wondering if there is a larger lesson here. We can all point to the theme of post-Katrina rebuilding, and realize what a rebirth this has been for the Saints' QB, Drew Brees. Drafted in the same year as Tom Brady, rivals in the Big Ten, Brees' performance in the past several years is often overlooked as people honor Manning and Brady. It's ironic the completions record he matched belonged to Brady. The Saints' organization was the classic underdog going in, and we take great satisfaction from underdogs who plug away and prevail. A comeback victory also warms the hearts of fans all over (except in Indiana, of course). But what does all this tell us, really? We are a people that love the compelling story of the underdog, the comeback, the phoenix arising from the ashes. Don't forget Kurt Warner's comeback. Heck, he had a whole career of comebacks. We just love it. But why is it so compelling? I think we all see ourselves just a little in these stories. It helps us believe that if we just keep plugging, we can make it ourselves one day. So, as we move on with our lives, let's just keep plugging, even if we seem to face some pretty overwhelming odds. It happens, you know. Underdogs win when they stick to it.

Twenty-Ten vs. Two-Thousand-Ten

It's not about the syllables. I've been conducting an informal survey among people I see so far this year. It's beginning to look like "twenty-ten," by a pretty good majority. I was a "two-thousand-nine" guy all the way last year, only occasionally substituting "09," but never "twenty-oh-nine." Early results showed that younger adults lean toward "twenty-ten," while people who have seen a few more years are more inclined to feel they are more likely to use "two-thousand-ten." If you think about it, "twenty-ten" is the more traditional, as generations used "nineteen-ten," "nineteen-eleven"…"nineteen-ninety-eight." "nineteen-ninety-nine," etc. And, before that, were the thirteens, fourteens, fifteens, sixteens, seventeens and eighteens. But most people I talk with don't over-think it. They just say "twenty-ten" sounds right. And no, I am not hearing that fewer syllables mean a smaller carbon footprint, or less energy consumed due to fewer syllables. So, which do you expect to use more often—twenty-ten, or two-thousand-ten?