Dylan Brooks | Words of the West

Learning to Wait

The calendar looked like a warped tic-tac-toe board.

A series of X’s covered various date boxes, with the marks accelerating toward one date that was circled.

My sister was relying on this system as she waited for our parents to return.

They were across the ocean, enjoying a European vacation. Our grandparents were looking after us in their stead.

I didn’t mind this arrangement. But my sister did.

She was maybe 4 or 5 years old. She couldn’t fathom why our parents would abandon us like this. And she wanted the whole episode to end, immediately.

So, after enduring a night of my sister’s hysterics, my grandmother suggested the calendar technique. It wouldn’t make our parents come home faster. But it would help make their impending return more tangible.

The activity transformed my sister. A new sense of determination overtook her. Despair gave way to excitement, which built with each passing day.

Learning to wait was paying dividends.

Patience is a virtue.

You’ve likely heard that proverb a time or three. And for good reason.

Waiting, you see, is the natural order of things. Plants take time to blossom. Structures take time to complete. And opportunities take time to emerge.

And yet, we’re not wired to wait. From our earliest days, we demand instant gratification. A bottle. A blanket. A toy.

To paraphrase Queen, we want it all and we want it now.

This central tension requires a metamorphosis. To reap the fruits of the world around us, we must learn to live by its rules. And that requires a crash course in patience.

My grandmother taught that course to my sister with that calendar exercise. And I went through similar crucibles as I learned to wait.

These lessons were annoying, frustrating, and bewildering at the time. But looking back now, I’m grateful for them.

For much of my life has developed gradually. Professional opportunities have often been slow to emerge. Social connections have ebbed and flowed. Earning power has arrived relatively late to the party.

If I hadn’t learned patience, I wouldn’t have achieved much. I’d have thrown in the towel years ago — resigning myself to a future of bitterness and diminished potential.

Patience was one of the greatest gifts of my childhood.

But I wonder if I’m among its final recipients.

My middle school years were a whirlwind.

I was attending a new school — one which I was commuting to on my own. To cut down on the risk, my parents bought me a cell phone.

Back home, my parents had added cable TV, a PlayStation 2, and a DSL internet line. Instead of spending my evenings ensconced in boredom, I could now watch a show, play a video game, or browse the web.

Instant gratification had been dropped into my midst like supplies from a rescue helicopter. Life had fundamentally changed.

But not entirely.

You see, much of this technology was primitive by modern standards. Smartphones and streaming were still years away. And the options contained in these digital devices were far from limitless.

Plus, I’d already become well-versed in the virtue of patience. So, I tended to treat instant gratification more like snack than a full meal.

The landscape is far different for kids today.

By the time they get to middle school, many have been playing with smartphones and tablets for years. They’ve streamed bottomless catalogs of shows on big screen TVs. They’ve played hosts of video games online, facing off against peers hundreds of miles away.

This setup provides ample opportunities for the newest generations. Opportunities my younger self could have never dreamed of.

And yet, it brings up some disconcerting questions.

It’s safe to say that today’s children won’t need resort to cross off dates on their calendars or counting the tiles on the kitchen backsplash. There are more dynamic entertainment options at their disposal.

But how will these generations learn how to practice patience? That lesson no longer seems to be required in the era of instant gratification. And I worry about what that means down the line.

On a June night in Florida, a group of hockey players took turns skating around an ice rink in a sports arena.

The players had just won the Stanley Cup. And each was taking a victory lap with the most prestigious trophy in sports – cheered on by thousands of delirious fans.

Standing among the players on the ice was a middle-aged man in a suit. He was the team’s coach. A hard-charging hockey lifer who had never won the big one before.

As a TV reporter interviewed the coach, one of the players skated up to the coach with the Stanley Cup. He abruptly paused the interview and hoisted the trophy high above his head, letting out a roar.

It was fitting.

Paul Maurice had coached 26 seasons in the National Hockey League. He had spent time behind the bench for four different franchises, winning 900 games in the process.

But he’d never reached the pinnacle of his profession before.

He’d come close at times. Twice, he’d watched an opposing team hoist the cup at his team’s expense. But he’d also been fired twice and forced to resign once.

It had been a long road to glory. In the face of so much heartbreak and heartache, Maurice needed to practice patience. To learn to wait for his opportunity, and to capture it when it arrived.

That opportunity came at the end of his second season coaching the Florida Panthers. Patience paid off in a moment of instant gratification.

It sounds ironic. But it’s par for the course.

You see, hockey coaching jobs have become a revolving door in recent years. Few bench bosses last more than a few seasons with any team. Instead, experienced coaches move around the league in an elaborate game of musical chairs.

As I write this, only three coaches across the league have been in their posts for four seasons. Yet at least nine have track records comparable to Maurice’s.

It seems that team executives have impulse-itis. They crave instant gratification and accept nothing less. Even though the absurdity of that quest is self-evident.

This disconnect is what awaits our entire society if we don’t learn to wait. People will jump ship from their responsibilities at the first moment of difficulty. Those offering opportunities will cut bait at the first sign of underperformance.

There will be no runway for us to evolve, to grow, to let things develop. Life will be a series of hollow moments in time, with precious few of them fulfilling.

This is not a path worth following. So, let’s re-blaze an old one.

Let’s put boundaries around the instant gratification in our midst. Let’s re-introduce mid and long-term goals back to our lives. And let’s evangelize patience as a strength, not a weakness.

Going back to the future like this will surely have its challenges. But it will unlock untold opportunities for all of us to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

And that’s an outcome worth waiting for.

Wear on the Tires

The scene was horrific.

A beachside condominium in ruins, with residents trapped beneath the rubble.

It seemed like something out of a movie. But back in June 2021, it was all too real for the residents of Surfside, Florida.

A wing of the Champlain Towers complex abruptly collapsed in the middle of the night, killing 98 people and injuring plenty more.

No hurricane or fire or other acute disaster brought the building down. And there were no warning signs to alert inhabitants to the structure’s demise. Indeed, the randomness of the incident made it so terrifying.

How could a building that had been through the rigors of the tropics suddenly give out like this on a clear, calm night? And would others suffer the same fate?

The answers are disconcerting. But they require our investigation.

I remember the day I first felt it.

A hollow pain on the inside of my lower leg.

I was on a morning run, and I’d just crossed a busy street. I grimaced for a second. But I gave no thought to stopping.

After all, running is about endurance. About continuing, even when it’s uncomfortable. I wasn’t about to break with that mantra here.

Besides, it was hot and humid out. Maybe I was just cramping up.

When I reached a water fountain a mile later, I took a healthy swig. But the blast of hydration and a quick stretch of the legs did little to quell the discomfort. And nothing else I tried in the ensuing days helped.

So, I went to the doctor, who ordered an X-ray. When that came back clean, I went through acres of red tape to get an MRI scheduled.

That image contained the smoking gun. A hairline fracture in my left tibia.

I was ordered to stop running for 12 weeks, and to drop out of the race I’d been training for. My body needed to heal.

I was devastated by this news. All the work I’d done to train for that race had gone up in smoke. The five stages of grief were all that remained.

Still, I tried to find the silver lining in it all.

I’d put more than 1,000 miles of running on my legs over the prior year. Perhaps they’d feel fresher after a reset. Perhaps I would as well.

Yet, I found the return to running challenging. When I hit the streets a few months later, my endurance just wasn’t there.

It would take a couple months to get my stamina to return. Meanwhile, my top-end speed never quite did come back.

Plus, I kept sustaining new injuries, including one that required surgery. Those setbacks robbed me of any semblance of rhythm. I was effectively in a rolling rehab cycle for two years.

Eventually, I found the culprit for my woes. I was diagnosed with a degenerative bone condition — one that left me particularly susceptible to injury. Genetic misfortune had done me in more than anything else.

I could have taken this tidy explanation at face value. Indeed, perhaps I should have. But instead, I kept pulling at the thread of my athletic demise.

Perhaps my own delusions had done me in more than my bone chemistry ever could. Maybe the mantra that time would heal all wounds was misguided.

It all required further investigation.

When you get your driver’s license, you learn a host of new skills.

There are the core driving functions, of course. How to accelerate, brake, and steer. How to check mirrors and blind spots. How to merge into traffic or pull into a parking spot.

But then there’s the maintenance acumen. How to fill the gas tank. How to read warning lights on the dashboard. And how to check tire tread.

That last task is critically important. And yet, it’s easily overlooked.

We tend to forget about the circles of rubber connecting our vehicles to the road until that connection becomes faulty. At which point, we’re in deep trouble.

Fortunately, there’s an easy heuristic for checking tire health. If we insert an upside-down penny into the tread and see the entirety of Abraham Lincoln’s head showing, the tire is worn down — or bald.

There is no remedy for a bald tire. Our only option is to replace it with a newer, fresher model. And this happens relatively frequently.

I’ve primarily driven three vehicles in my lifetime. But I’ve had at least six sets of tires — combined — on those vehicles.

So, I find myself perplexed when I hear the term wear on the tires bandied about as a complement in social settings. It seems woefully out of place.

The analogy is meant to be a compliment. It indicates that someone has plenty of experience. And that a little recuperation is all that’s needed for that individual to share the fruits of all that experience.

It’s an appealing sentiment. But it’s also a delusional one.

You see, time moves in but one direction. And once we stop growing, we start degrading.

This is as true for our bodies as it is for the clothing we put on them or the tools we operate with them. Everything gets worn down until it’s worn out. There is no magic reset button.

I should have considered this when I saw that hairline fracture on my MRI results. I grasped onto the delusion of coming back better than ever. But I would have been better off acknowledging that the worn tread on my legs would never return.

It’s a sobering reality. But accepting it would have helped me move forward.

In the middle of Spain lies a small city named Segovia. And in the middle of Segovia sits a giant stone aqueduct.

The aqueduct was built by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago to ferry water across a steep valley in what’s now the city center. And it still stands intact today.

It’s safe to say there’s been plenty of wear on the “tires” of this structure over the years. The granite is no longer pristine, and the mortar is no longer quite as smooth.

But the leaders of Segovia have done a remarkable job keeping the structure maintained. Over the years, they’ve repaired some of the arches and replaced some more. They’ve checked the integrity of the structure and fortified it as needed.

They’ve let the aqueduct age both gracefully and safely.

Contrast that approach with the one taken by the proprietors of the Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida. Instead of working with the lost tire tread, they effectively let the building rest. And 30 years into its lifespan, it gave out.

These two structures – and their fates – represent paths of destiny. We just need to choose which one we follow.

Do we cling to delusion, believing that a little time off our feet will reverse the wear on our tires? Or do we work with the degradation, and build a smooth path to tomorrow?

The answer should be clear. Let’s go with it.

The Next Frontier

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon.

Moments later, the American astronaut turned on his radio and made an eleven-word address.

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Back on earth, my father was watching all of this from a TV set. He was days away from his 9^th birthday. And he was transfixed.

The next frontier had been reached. For the first time, a human had left footprints somewhere beyond this planet. Life had fundamentally changed.

This sense of wonder has remained with my father for decades.

While he didn’t seek to become an astronaut himself, my father has remained amazed by the night sky. As an adult, he traveled to the upper reaches of Sweden to view the northern lights. And when the signature frontiers of my generation – wireless Internet and the smartphone – were released, my father was one of the earliest adopters of each.

I was a teenager when those technological advances took hold. I should have been as eager as my father to traverse the next frontier.

But I wasn’t.

I had little trust of wireless connections, preferring the familiarity of the Ethernet cords that had sustained my browsing habits for years. And I saw little point for a smartphone when I my flip phone fit neatly in my pocket.

It was clear that my next frontier would not match my father’s.

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on a grand expedition.

The fledgling United States had just purchased nearly a million square miles of land from the French. But neither party had set foot in much of it. So, the U.S. government commissioned Lewis and Clark’s expedition to learn more about what it had purchased.

The men convened a traveling party, which headed up the Missouri River from its mouth to its headwaters. Then the group crossed through the mountains of present-day Montana and Idaho before following the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. After a winter on what’s presently the Oregon coast, Lewis and Clark returned east to report their findings to the government.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition quickly became the stuff of legend. At the time of the journey, Kentucky and Ohio were considered the American frontier. But Lewis and Clark proved that the next frontier — a vaster, more stunning stretch of land — was out there for the claiming. And in the ensuing decades, thousands of pioneers set out to do just that.

Soon enough, settlers dotted the land from coast to coast. Farms, ranches, roads, and towns filled the wilderness. The frontier became the mainstream.

And once it did, we set our collective sights on frontiers elsewhere. First to territories in the middle of the ocean or up by the Arctic Circle. Then to the moon and stars. And then finally to the wonders of technology.

Putting a stake in the ground became the American ethos. And Lewis and Clark made it all possible.

Still, there’s an alternative explanation for the expedition that started it all. Perhaps Lewis and Clark were not visionary. Maybe they were just beneficiaries of good fortune.

You see, this expedition was not exactly a prudent one. A group of 40 people blindly headed off into a wilderness fraught with untold dangers.

Unpredictable weather, wild animals, and legions of native tribes dotted the land they were traversing. There was no way to fully anticipate encounters with any of them, and there was no way to tell when those encounters might lead to death.

Incredibly, Lewis and Clark only lost one member of their party over the course of the expedition – and that loss was caused by a medical emergency. But it’s nearly impossible to chalk the low casualty account up to anything but luck.

This point has resonated with me ever since I learned about the Lewis and Clark expedition in school. While others are captivated by the new horizons the quest unlocked, I find myself wondering what could have gone wrong along the way.

Risk reduction, you see, is my preferred frontier. Much like an insurance advisor, I’m passionate about reducing as many bad outcomes as possible.

I’m the one looking for a handrail at the vista point. I’m the one who buckles my seat belt as I readjust my SUV in a parking spot. I’m the one who obsesses over my posture as the plane takes off and lands.

So no, I wouldn’t be cut out for a trek through the wilderness. Or a trip to the moon.

I wouldn’t be keen on connecting to an early-stage Wi-Fi signal. Or purchasing the first few models of the iPhone.

From where I sit, it just wouldn’t be sensible.

Yet, there are still frontiers I yearn to explore.

They’re just on a different dimension.

Do you drink a lot of soda?

The comment from my dental hygienist seemed innocuous enough. I nodded affirmatively.

I can tell, she replied. It might be having an impact on your teeth.

My mind immediately went to the worst-case scenarios. Were a host of cavity fillings in my future? Root canals? Implants?

I was determined to avoid these fates. So, drastic changes were needed.

I’d given up most fast food a year earlier and suffered no ill effects. Maybe I could do the same with beverages.

So, I cut bait with all sugary drinks. I said goodbye to Dr Pepper and sweet tea. I started taking my coffee black and turning down offers for lemonade.

And I felt the difference almost immediately.

I dropped 10 pounds in a matter of weeks. I was no longer feeling bloated or jittery. And the dental hygienist stopped giving me grief.

Risk reduction was transforming my life.

I repeated the trick a few years later. One day in early January, I gave up alcohol for good.

At the time, I was in business school – an environment with its share of boozy social functions. I knew that flipping the switch would be difficult in this season of life. And that abstaining could even be costly to my post-graduation prospects.

But I remembered the effect the sugary drink ban had on my health. Wouldn’t an alcohol ban also work wonders?

It has. And I remain sober to this day.

These cutbacks have defined my personal frontier. Removing McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and Jack Daniels from my life has transformed my body and detoxed my mind. Although I’m making my world of indulgences smaller, I’m truly better for the changes.

And yet, I’m left with a question each time I make a cutback. What’s my next frontier?

Until recently, it was caffeine. Even without soda in my arsenal, I still spent many mornings hopped up on black coffee or iced tea. But I’ve succeeded in kicking that habit as well.

So, now what? Do I eliminate sweets? Swearing? Something else?

I’m running out of vices to rid myself of. And that’s problematic.

It seems that frontiers are not infinite. Whether we’re expanding our horizons or reducing our holdings, there’s only so far to go.

I suppose I’ll need to make peace with that. Someday, when I’ve rid myself of the cupcakes and the dirty words, I’ll need to find acceptance with where I am. Just as others did after taming the wilderness, walking on the moon, or unveiling the iPhone.

Perhaps this represents our next frontier. Maybe our destiny is to be where our feet are, once we’re we done looking at what’s outward and inward.

I welcome this exploration – in a bit.

I have a few more vices to knock out first.

Outside Noise

A man rides up to the front lines of a makeshift army.

His hair is long. Half his face is painted blue. And he’s dripping with confidence.

As he parades back and forth upon his horse, he addresses the masses before him.

Sons of Scotland. I am William Wallace.

The troops are nonplussed.

William Wallace is seven feet tall! one calls out.

Wallace takes it all in stride.

Yes, I’ve heard. Kills men by the hundreds. And if he were here, he’d consume the English with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse.

The troops chuckle. But Wallace quickly assures them that he is indeed William Wallace. And he reminds them why they have assembled on the battlefield. He ends his remarks with a warning to the English opponents across the battlefield.

They may take our lives. But they will never take our freedom!

It’s the signature scene from the movie Braveheart, and one of the great battle speeches of all time.

But it only occurs thanks to a dose of self-awareness.

Wallace hears the skepticism as he introduces himself. And he plays along with it to earn their trust.

It’s a master class in persuasion. One that’s as needed in the real world as it is on the silver screen.

We don’t listen to the outside noise.

This type of line is seemingly everywhere in the sporting universe.

Ask a coach or a player about what others are saying about their chances, and they’ll shrug it off. Fans, media pundits, and oddsmakers can speak all they want. But they ain’t hearing any of it.

Belief within the locker room is all that matters to these players and coaches. So long as that exists, the sky is the limit.

It’s a tidy theory, one tailor made for an environment dictated by scheduled competitions. Athletes have the freedom to shut out the world and just go play.

But for the rest of us? It’s not so easy.

We don’t have the luxury of built-in trust. We can’t ignore the narrative that surrounds us.

Much like William Wallace, we must pander to the crowd to get what we want out of life.

And that can get complicated.

My high school didn’t have a uniform policy.

Teenagers were allowed to wear whatever they wanted, provided it wasn’t profane or overly revealing.

Many of my classmates took advantage of this freedom to sport the latest from Abercrombie & Fitch or American Eagle. But I went a different route.

Most days, I’d show up to class in an oversized football or basketball jersey. My close-cropped hair was hidden under a backwards baseball hat. It was a set of attire unbecoming of a school setting. But it was my look.

Surely, I got some sideways stares in the hallways. And my classmates likely talked about me behind my back.

But I didn’t care enough to pay attention to any of it.

What did it matter what others thought? I had a right to live my life the way I saw fit. The outside noise hardly mattered.

But fast forward five years, and my viewpoint was quite different.

I was in my last semester of college. And I was spending my evenings applying for jobs across the southern tier of the country.

Bakersfield, California. Waco, Texas. Macon, Georgia. And so on.

I had no connections to Bakersfield, Waco, or Macon. I just knew that TV stations in those cities were looking for a news producer. A role I’d spent four years studying to step into.

While I did land phone interviews with some of those stations, none of them offered me a job.

So, I walked across the stage at graduation and into unemployment. I moved back in with my parents. And I sank into a pit of despair.

I still believed in myself. But I was starting to realize that wasn’t enough.

If I hoped to land a job, someone else would need to believe in me. They’d need to look at my resume, listen to my interview responses, and decide I was worthy of their trust.

I needed this outcome to financially sustain myself, to validate my studies, and succeed in adulthood.

The outside noise meant everything. It guarded the door to opportunity. It blazed the path to my future. It was inevitable.

So, I cleaned up my act.

I ditched my college wardrobe of t-shirts and shorts in favor of business casual attire. (I’d long since graduated from jerseys and baseball hats.) I woke up earlier each morning and forced myself to be more productive each day. I started doing mock interviews, considering my answers from the interviewer’s point of view.

And shortly thereafter, I landed my first job.

Be your authentic self.

This advice was everywhere early in my professional career.

Individualism was having a moment. Instead fitting in, people were actively trying to fit out.

I admired the pluck of this movement. But I was hesitant to play along.

For I knew the situation I was in. I was 2,000 miles from my family, providing the nightly news to a metro area of 250,000 people.

I’d earned the trust of my boss to do my job. I’d earned the trust of local TV viewers to serve the community. And I’d earned the trust of friends I’d made since I’d arrived in town.

But I knew that trust could easily be broken.

If I paid no heed to the outside noise, I might have found myself with no job, no friends, and no spot in the community. I would have been stranded on the high plains with nowhere to turn.

What others thought of me was existentially important. So, I paid attention to those perceptions. And I did my best to influence them.

This process has continued throughout my adult life. As I’ve moved to a new city, adopted a new career, went back to school, and picked up new hobbies, I’ve continued to pay attention to the outside noise.

Often, this has led to frustration. I’ve occasionally seen my goals thwarted by external skepticism. And more than once, doors have slammed in my face as a result.

Still, tuning into the feedback has helped me move forward. Instead of rebelling against adverse perceptions, I can iterate off them. And in doing so, I can increase my chances of getting the next opportunity — all while remaining true to who I am.

If trust is a bridge to opportunity, I’m building the pilings and approaches to that bridge from my side of the divide. And I’m making it easier for the other party to follow suit.

But all this is only possible because I recognize that the divide exists. And because I can see the merit in its inevitability.

We all can find value in this approach. We all would be better served acting like William Wallace in front of his troops than an athlete dismissing the media members in the locker room.

So, let’s get to it.

The outside noise matters. Use it well.

On Adequacy

The image speaks volumes.

I’m standing on a racing podium, displaying my silver medal. Beside me are the gold and bronze medalists. We all look happy, but my smile is the most radiant.

I’d headed to the starting line of this race with a clear objective. I wanted to traverse the 10-kilometer — or 6.2 mile — distance in under 40 minutes.

It was an audacious goal, one that required equal parts speed and endurance. The fact that the race was occurring on hot summer morning — and that I’d been battling an injury in the week prior — only made this mark more difficult to attain.

But against all odds, I’d persevered. I started out the race briskly, settled into a steady pace, and survived the final couple miles.

As I crossed the finish line, the clock read 39:54. I’d set a personal best for this distance.

Mission accomplished. Well, sort of.

You see, my finishing time wasn’t atop the leaderboard on this day. In fact, I wasn’t even in the top 10 of all racers. And when it came to my division — the subset of male racers who were around my age — my performance was only second best.

That’s why I was holding a silver medal on the podium, rather than a gold one or a winner’s plaque. I’d earned those in other races — either for overall performance or standing in my division. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for similar accolades this time.

But I wasn’t going to let my standing impact my mood. I’d done my best on this day, and I’d proved my adequacy in the wake of some tough competition.

I had everything to smile about.

It’s good enough for government work.

I was dumbfounded when one of my high school teachers stated this to my class.

The solution he’d posited on the whiteboard was not quite complete. It was maybe 90% to the point of where it should be.

Why call it a day there? And why smear the government like this?

Clearly, there was much for me to learn about the ways of the world. And I needed to rid my mind of its utopian perceptions.

In the classroom, achievement was graded on an A to F scale. Expectations were clearly defined, and it was my responsibility to attain them.

If I paid attention, completed assignments, and studied diligently, I’d find the rewards of the winner’s circle. Sparkling grades, the praise of my teachers, a chance to continue my studies at a prestigious university — they were all possible if I just did the work.

Adequacy was everything in this environment.

But in the world outside the classroom windows, things were far murkier. There was no framework of expectations. There was only a bar to clear — one that could be set higher or lower at will.

The government, in my teacher’s telling, set that bar lower. There was too much bureaucracy in play to demand a culture of excellence.

But other corners of society were more akin to an Olympic high jumping competition. People could set the bar higher and higher, until they were leaping halfway to the moon.

The context was established by the pace setters, the winners, the high-fliers. Doing an adequate job in this environment would earn you precisely nothing.

It was a hard lesson to take in. In fact, I’m still wrestling with it today.

I tried so hard and got so far. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

That refrain is the centerpiece of Linkin Park’s hit song In The End – which was playing seemingly everywhere during my teenage years.

I found those lines needlessly dark and brooding back then. After all, this was the land of opportunity, and my future was bright. Why should I think my hard work would go for naught?

But now, I feel a kinship with them.

You see, I’ve attained quite a bit in my adult life. I’ve embarked on a career, left it, and built another one. I’ve increased my net worth, grown my social circle, and expanded my knowledge base.

I’ve shown adequacy at every turn. And I’ve taken every opportunity to demonstrate my competence.

But what has it gotten me?

Far less than I’d anticipated.

According to my teenage logic, I should have been well-established by now. I should have already reached a higher standing in my professional field, with my own piece of land to call home, and enough in the bank account to be perpetually comfortable.

But instead, I’m hearing Linkin Park in my head, over and over.

Some of this has to do with the era I’ve come of age in. Economic turmoil, a pandemic, and rapid technological innovation have scrambled the deck more than ever before.

But I believe a more specific shift is at play. One that rejects adequacy in favor of exceptionalism.

Now, to be clear, the allure of the exceptional has always been there. But with the world more interconnected than ever before, it’s now easier to find unicorns. And the risks of settling for anything less are dauntingly steep.

This presents quite the problem for the adequate.

Indeed, in every corner of my life, I feel like I’m in a silent auction with moon jumpers. I can put in my best effort and prove my adequacy. But there will inevitably be someone with more means, more accolades, and more abilities to seize that which I am striving for. Someone I cannot see or size up. Someone I will only hear of after the fact.

There is no silver medal for me to claim. There is nothing for me to do.

There is only me standing on the podium in the wind. And the smile on my face is gone.

I sat on an upholstered chair in a wood-paneled office next to the school gym. The baseball coach sat across the table from me.

He got straight to the point.

I’m sorry. You didn’t make the team.

Those seven words stung, no doubt. I’d yearned to be a pro baseball player for years. Now, I wasn’t even going to have the chance to suit up for my sophomore year of high school.

But I can’t say I was all that surprised.

I’d done a few good things the prior season, and I’d given my best during tryouts. But others had attained more. They deserved a spot on the team more than I did.

I walked out of the room, hearing the door close behind me. And I started to consider which doors ahead might open for me.

I had good grades in school, and I knew I could write. Plus, I liked watching movies. Maybe I could be a screenwriter.

I followed this thread all the way into my first year of college. But after taking a few film classes there, I discovered that television was more up my alley. So, I switched my major to Broadcast Journalism and parlayed that into a job as a TV news producer.

Adequacy hadn’t helped me live out my baseball dreams. But it opened other avenues for me to move forward into self-sufficiency.

Now, all these years later, I’m unsure where to turn. The path forward to the next era of my life seems to be reserved for the unicorns, the invisible exceptionalists. I have no guidance on what’s needed to reach their level. And I have no alternative avenues to get me to my destination.

Adequacy has led me to a dead end. And I’m stuck in the cul-de-sac.

There seems to be no simple path out of this morass. But I won’t give up.

I’ll keep trying my best, giving my all, and proving my adequacy at every turn.

Hopefully someday that will be enough to get me through.

The Curse of The Strongman

He had thick eyebrows and a thicker mustache.

He dressed in the fashion of the day. A suit. A hat. An overcoat. A pistol.

His name was Seth Bullock, and he was a prominent western sheriff.

Bullock might not have held the notoriety of Wyatt Earp or Pat Garrett. But he was just as effective a lawman as those two – if not more. Operating with steely resolve, Bullock cleaned up a county in Montana. Then he repeated the trick in the Dakota Territory.

Bullock’s exploits helped tame the northern frontier. They also drew the acclaim of future President Theodore Roosevelt, who would go on to appoint Bullock as a United States Marshal.

And yet, despite Bullock’s strong and steady hand, there’s little recognition of him in the region today. It’s Roosevelt — not Bullock — whose face is chiseled into a mountain in South Dakota, and whose name is on a national park in North Dakota.

Bullock had the pedigree of a strongman. But it turns out that title only goes so far.

Back when I was in middle school, I leaned about a particular term in history class.

Tariffs.

I hadn’t seen this word in my day-to-day life. And for good reason.

Tariffs, I discovered, were taxes on goods shipped across national borders in the 18^th century. American colonists took exception to the practice back then, and this backlash helped pave to the road to America’s independence.

I internalized this information, used it to ace my class exam, and promptly filed it away in the furthest recesses of my mind.

Tariffs hadn’t been relevant in 225 years. I wouldn’t need to worry about them anymore.

Boy, was I wrong.

You see, a generation after I turned in my history exam, a new president took the helm in America. Well, more accurately, a returning president — one who had occupied the Oval Office four years prior.

This president railed against weak leadership while campaigning for his old job. He all but pledged to be a strongman if elected back to the role. And voters accepted the pledge, paving his road back to the White House.

Once back in power, the president took every opportunity to rule with an iron fist. He started deporting migrants, slashing the government workforce, and systematically removing his opponents from positions of influence.

It was all a bit jarring, but hardly unpredictable. This is what a strongman does.

But his next move would prove the most disruptive. The president brought back tariffs, imposing them on nearly every other country on the planet.

The reasoning for this move was straightforward —to the president, at least. America had been roiled by skyrocketing inflation in recent years. American industry had been on the decline, and trade deficits with other countries had widened.

Why not solve all these problems with one fell swoop? Make global trade too expensive to be practical. And bring supply chains — and their associated jobs — back within American borders.

Unemployment would plummet as industrial jobs returned within our borders. And with those goods being made closer to home, prices would drop as well.

The stock market would rally, businesses would remain profitable, and families would bask in the prosperity of a rejuvenated economy. The strongman leader would be the hero, the savior, the genius behind it all.

This was the theory the president had as he announced the tariffs. But things played out much differently.

Markets tanked within hours of the announcement, wiping out billions of dollars in value. Businesses raised alarm about rapid onshoring of operations — a process that normally takes years to complete. Financial analysts warned of rising prices, and even the risk of a recession.

The president may have embodied the strongman persona with aplomb before. But now, he appeared to have overplayed his hand.

It was a sordid outcome. But hardly an unprecedented one.

The annals of history are filled with strongman leaders.

The legacies of these leaders vary widely. Some built empires through military might, for instance. Others committed mass genocide and related atrocities.

But even with these varying outcomes, two threads seem to tie this archetype together. Strongman leaders are effective at consolidating power and ineffective at managing an economy.

That second part of the equation might not seem intuitive. But it should be.

Economics, you see, represents the systematic allocation of scarce resources. The entire practice is built on the premise that there’s not enough to go around, and participants must consider trade-offs.

Just about every economic concept — from Invisible Hand to specialization to supply chains — stems from the entrenched reality of these trade-offs. Capitalism is essentially built on it.

But cooperative systems like these crumble in the face of the strongman ethos. There is no room for the strongman to share control or delegate influence. Giving an inch means the gig is up.

So, strongmen often choose power over prosperity. Or they silence the voices of reason in favor of chasing economic fantasies.

The latter appears to be happening in America. Tariffs are just the vehicle to get the nation to that outcome.

This is the curse of the strongman. And we’re mired in it.

Guilt by association.

Such a concept is prevalent in America.

If we give a friend a ride to the bank, and the friend robs that bank, there’s a good chance we’ll be viewed as complicit in the crime.

This might seem unfair. We didn’t necessarily know what our friend would do once inside those bank doors.

But we should have.

The bank robber was our friend, after all. We’ve conversed with them, immersed ourselves in their personality, and come to recognize what they were capable of.

The same principle holds true when it comes to our leaders — particularly those of the strongman variety. We might not be directly culpable for their actions. But we still carry the stain of association.

We do so because we lean into one illusion, in particular. That an iron fist can yield widespread economic prosperity.

This is simply not possible, for the reasons already discussed. And there are plenty of real-world examples of the illusion failing. Examples we’ve seen in the news, or learned about in school, or just heard about through our social circles.

We know better. And yet, we chase after misguided fantasies anyway.

It’s time to wake up.

There is an explanation as to why Seth Bullock’s name no longer graces much of the northern tier.

It centers on a couple of elections that took place in the 1870s in what is now Lawrence County, South Dakota.

Bullock had served as sheriff in the county. But he was an appointed sheriff who had been named to his position by the Dakota territory’s governor.

As the county legitimized, elections were held for the sheriff’s position. Bullock ran for his post, but he did not win it. He was forced to cede his duties.

Bullock tried again in the following year’s election. But once again, the voters cast his aspirations aside.

Even at the apex of his exploits, Bullock’s legacy was getting sidelined.

It’s hard to know exactly what led to these election losses. But it’s possible that the citizens of Lawrence County saw the limits of strongman rule.

Sure, Bullock could cut down on the saloon fights and the shootouts in the street. But the frontier region was on the precipice of a boom. Could Bullock really help deliver the prosperity residents were seeking?

It appeared not.

Indeed, Bullock’s exploits had pitted him against some local business owners — who prospered in trade and social connections across the county, but who also engaged in some illicit activities. Voters seemed to favor the future promised by these leaders to the strongman keeping them safe.

Perhaps we can take something from our ancestors’ example. Perhaps we can get less swept up in the fantasy of rhetoric. And perhaps we can apply more logic when a strongman makes their pitch of prosperity to us.

This might not sooth the acid reflux of our current tariffed economy. But it could keep some future heartburn at bay.

And that matters.

Looking Up

My father placed a blanket on the grass. As we parked ourselves on it, he encouraged me to look up at the night sky.

I glanced upwards. It didn’t look like much to me at first.

But then my father started pointing at the little specks illuminating the darkness.

See that? It’s Orion’s belt. And over there is the big dipper.

I stared on, struggling to see the patterns in the stars. I was only four years old, more prone to aimless daydreaming than structured visualization.

Yet, I still recognized how special this moment was. I idolized my father, but I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted to with him.

Now, here we were. Our backs to the ground, our eyes fixed on the vastness of space. It was quiet. It was comfortable. It was mesmerizing.

And I never wanted to stop looking up.

A few years later, I was in the middle of a school day when my mother showed up to sign me out of class.

She explained that my father had gotten injured on his way to work. He had slipped on some ice and fractured a couple vertebrae in his back during the ensuing fall.

My mother had scooped me from school early so that we could help look after him.

My father would ultimately be OK. But through his arduous recovery, my father kept reminiscing on one moment from his injury.

As he lay prone on the sidewalk, my father remembered looking up. He saw the pale blue of the morning sky. He saw the tops of the tree branches. He saw a few rogue birds who hadn’t migrated south for the winter.

It was as if my father was back staring up at the stars again. Indeed, the world around him faded away in that moment. My father felt no pain and sensed no panic.

He was at peace. And that sense of peace helped carry him through.

Looking up will do that.

Roughly a decade after all this, I went to Italy on a family vacation. A few days into the trip, I found myself inside the Sistine Chapel.

I was a teenager by now, full of confidence and oblivious to the lessons of my past. So, I was equal parts annoyed and perplexed when I was urged to glance upwards to the frescos on the ceiling.

Why were those painted all the way up there? I asked my parents as we left the vestibule. It makes no sense.

My parents offered up an answer that I can’t recall. And we moved on through the Vatican.

These days, I realize how misguided my question was. Indeed, the placement of the art was part of what made it so special — and what continues to spark amazement to this day.

Michaelangelo defied death to paint the elaborate scenes. After all, there were no automated bucket lifts in the 16^th century, only wooden scaffolds.

The artist took this risk willingly to create a masterpiece. And he dared us to cast our gaze upwards to take it in.

We’ve done so in the Sistine Chapel — for centuries.

But it has become the exception, not the rule.

I had just finished a set of sit ups at the gym when I lay back on the workout bench.

There were two more sets to go, but I needed a moment to recover.

As I lay there, feeling the burning in my abs and thighs, I studied the ceiling. The banks of recessed florescent lights. The electrical conduit covers. The flat, even surface denoting the top of the room. And the white coat of paint covering it all.

It looked so blasé, so ordinary, so sterile. And I felt a bit wrong for staring up at it.

I might wax poetic about looking up at the stars, the tree branches, or the frescos. But staring in that direction has fallen out of favor. Indeed, we’re more likely to glance horizontally at our surroundings, or hunch over to read the smartphones in our hands.

Looking up is reserved for the compromised moments. When we’re counting sheep in bed, or to recover our muscles for the next set of reps. The vertical view is but temporary, and hardly worthy of illustration. So, we don’t bother to make that view notable.

But perhaps we should.

You see, our fixation with horizontal vistas has its limits. There is a sense of awe that comes with looking toward the horizon. And there’s a sense of adventure in heading off to see what’s beyond it.

Still, the truth of the matter is that nearly every accessible corner of this planet has been explored. Someone else has been to where we’re going. Someone else has uncovered the mysteries in our midst.

Looking up has no such baggage. The law of gravity proves that few have headed to where we now stare, and we’re unlikely to head there ourselves.

It’s our imagination that must run wild when staring at the vast expanses above us. The stars, the birds, the tree branches — they all provide a launching point. The rest of the journey lies between our ears.

Of course, we can’t always be out in the open. Many times, we find ourselves with a roof over our heads.

Such structures can block our view of the vast expanses above us. But they needn’t stymie our imaginations as well.

Michaelangelo was onto something when he wandered onto that scaffold with his paintbrush. He recognized that a ceiling is more than a protective edifice. It can be a canvas to what lies beyond — if we care to provide the inspiration.

It’s time that we follow his lead. That we view the act of looking up as more than a novelty case or a last resort. And that we prime ourselves to make such a view worth our while —regardless of where we take it in.

Looking up can yield some powerful perceptions. It’s time that we unlock them.

Problem Solvers

We hadn’t spent five minutes in the living room when my dad piped up with a question.

When you hung these pictures on the wall, were you standing up?

Our host— a family friend — acknowledged that she had.

Well, they’re hung too high, my father replied. But don’t worry. I’ll get them fixed.

A few minutes later, my father headed to the restroom to relieve himself. When he re-emerged, he had a quizzical look on his face. He wanted to know how long the toilet handle had been loose.

Our host admitted the handle had been that way for some time. But she insisted it wasn’t a big deal.

Nonsense, my father replied. I’m happy to fix it. In fact, I’ll feel better if I do that.

I stared at my father in disbelief. Here we were enjoying free shelter in the company of a friendly face. And instead of expressing gratitude, my father was exerting control.

But my father didn’t see it that way. He noticed that some problems around the house needed fixing. And in his eyes, gratitude came through the salve.

Every river tells a story.

So goes an old axiom.

Few other features in the natural world are as elaborately complex as river. Mountain ranges rise up to the sky in thick lines. Oceans stretch uniformly to the horizon – and beyond.

But rivers bend and wind through canyons, prairies, and forests. They dart and meander through rugged terrain with a determined ferocity.

The water in those rivers seeks the simplest route downhill to the sea. The path of least resistance.

Those twists and turns are obligatory in achieving this objective.

Much like rivers, we are taught to seek the easiest route forward. To eschew complexity and to keep from flowing uphill.

This is the mandate our family friend was living under when she left her pictures hanging too high and her toilet handle too loose.

But my father saw right through it all. He knew that the path of least resistance was futile. Things had to get fixed, as unpleasant as that work might seem. And he was going to be the one to fix them.

My father’s resoluteness left an impact on me then. An impact that still resonates now.

Late in my elementary school years, I was asked to read The Odyssey.

The book was thick and bulky. As I brought it to class and back home, it turned my backpack into a rock.

And by the time I’d read about 100 pages, I’d had enough. The story had just begun, but I was in full protest mode.

Why did this work have to be so drawn out, I asked my mother. Couldn’t Odysseus have just made an easy, simple trip home from Troy?

My mother responded that the travails were what made the book stand the test of time. We don’t remember the stories of the warriors who had an easy trip across the Aegean Sea. We remember Odysseus because he went to hell and back on his journey.

That description resonated with me. No longer was the easy path the default path.

I realized I’d eventually be defined by the complexity I navigated, by the problems I solved. I recognized we all would be defined by these characteristics

So, I started embracing the problem solver’s mindset. I started tackling the challenges in my midst head on, instead of trying to avoid them.

This didn’t seem like a big deal at first. But over time, I started to realize how much of a seismic shift it was.

I’d become more engaged in school — fully committed to answering the questions my teachers posed to the class. I felt less helpless when my daily routine got knocked off kilter. And I started — for the first time — to truly consider what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Which would become an odyssey in itself.

In our age of modernity, there remains a fascination with Leonardo DaVinci.

The Renaissance figure left this earth more than 500 years ago. But his impact still resonates.

DaVinci was a polymath — a person of a wide range of expertise and interests. And he had a keen desire to express himself in many of these areas.

Much like his contemporaries, DaVinci painted frescos. But when he wasn’t holding a paintbrush, he was seeking answers to the mysteries of the day in botany, biology, physics, and engineering.

DaVinci mocked up contraptions for flying, for mobile warfare, for harnessing the energy of the sun, and for adding numbers together. The airplane, tank, solar panel, and calculator wouldn’t arrive for several more centuries. But all of them owe partial credit to DaVinci’s problem solving expertise.

I’m nowhere near the genius that Leonardo DaVinci was. But when I look at my life’s journey, I still see some parallels.

For my tale has been anything but simple. I’ve moved around the country and across the state of Texas. I’ve shifted careers and nearly gone broke. I’ve fallen headlong into new hobbies and ping-ponged between social circles.

These developments have not been without their fair share of challenges. Meeting the moment meant solving each problem in my midst, one by one, with an unrelenting air of zeal.

I needed to fashion myself as a polymath — much as DaVinci did. And I needed to harness the right mixture curiosity and grit to get difficult things done.

I’ve done that, and I’ve been rewarded for it.

But that’s only part of the story.

The movie Pulp Fiction is full of indelible characters. But the one that stands out to me is The Wolf.

The Wolf is not a costumed vigilante or a brutish thug. He’s Winston Wolf — a middle-aged man in a sharp tuxedo.

The Wolf arrives when two of the film’s main characters find themselves in an unconventional and messy situation. He helps the men get out of a jam by breaking the big dilemma into a series of smaller ones — and then making those dilemmas disappear.

This is The Wolf’s superpower. He’s a professional problem solver. A man who thinks quickly on his feet and takes control of a situation.

These days, I see a lot of The Wolf in myself. I not only have the motivation to solve any problem in my path, but I also have the touch needed to take control of the situation.

I’ve learned the principles of all this from my father, Odysseus, and Leonardo DaVinci. But I’ve learned the application from Winston Wolf.

I hope I can carry the torch they lit with honor. In fact, I hope we all can.

For problem solving needn’t be a special skill for special people. It’s available to all of us.

But no one can force us to take up the mantle. The inspiration must come from within.

Let us find that spark and act upon it.

The Imitators

The image is iconic.

Beyonce, dressed to the nines and looking bewildered.

The fodder for endless memes and GIFs across the Internet originated at the Grammy Awards. The iconic performing artist had tried her hand at a country album — Cowboy Carter. And Cowboy Carter had just been named Country Album of the Year.

Beyonce might have been stunned by her rapid ascent to the pinnacle of a new segment. But she shouldn’t have been.

From Post Malone to Shaboozey, and Chappell Roan to Bon Jovi, plenty of artists have crossed over to country music in recent years. While all of them found success, none have the pedigree of Beyonce — an international cultural icon with Texas roots.

So, while a Grammy award wasn’t predestined, it wasn’t exactly unexpected either.

And yet, when the moment arrived, many shared Beyonce’s reaction. For something had fundamentally changed. Something that could no longer be ignored.

After a moment of reflection, Beyonce took the stage to deliver her acceptance speech.

Humble as ever, Beyonce thanked God and expressed her surprise in winning. But she quickly pivoted into something more profound – the why behind Cowboy Carter.

I think sometimes genre is a code word to keep us in our place as artists. And I just want to encourage people to do what they’re passionate about, and to stay persistent.

With these words, Beyonce was seeking to sidestep the label of Imitator. She was hoping to reframe Cowboy Carter as art – no more, no less.

But this would prove to be a tough sell.

You see, I’m a longtime country music fan. And I listened to the songs on Cowboy Carter.

I thought they were good – really good. I thought they were creative and innovative. But I didn’t think they were particularly deep.

Sure, there are references to Americana, to poker, to outlaws and Levi’s jeans and cheating scoundrels. But those lyrics seemed disjointed and somewhat superficial to me.

The work seemed to lack the depth displayed by Martina McBride and Reba McEntire. It seemed to avoid the edginess conveyed by Miranda Lambert or Kacey Musgraves. It somehow seemed absent of the flair shown by Carrie Underwood and Lainey Wilson.

It was, in my view, an imitation. A tasteful, acclaimed imitation. But an imitation, nonetheless.

And I’m certain I’m not the only one who viewed the album this way.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

This axiom aims to take the sting out of mimicry. And rightfully so.

Artists like Beyonce mean no malice by trying their hand in a new genre. They are expressing their artistic freedom — and seeking to expand the genre in the process.

That’s noble. But the shift behind it is troubling.

You see, a wave of imitation requires a lifting mechanism. Something to set the scene and provide the imitator license to proceed.

In the case of country music, that launchpad has been slow to develop. But that extended timeline has only broadened the impact of the imitators.

A few decades ago, country music was in a far different place than today. Songs were full of depth and dripping with authenticity. But the audience hearing them was somewhat limited – mostly to rural areas across the heartland.

That started to change in the 1990s, as more artists went mainstream. I remember hearing music from Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, and Shania Twain over the intercom at suburban grocery stores back then. Those encounters were my first foray into country music.

As the mainstream shift continued, the songs coming from Nashville changed. The hyper-specific ballads of love and loss made way for fantasies of partying on truck beds in an open field. Bubblegum country took over.

The trend only accelerated as the years went by. Streaming shows like Yellowstone led to a surge in interest for everything rural. And the larger audience, combined with watered down country lyrics, made conditions ripe for imitators.

It’s no wonder then that Beyonce could win a Grammy for a country album. It’s no wonder that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would sit for a Vogue cover shoot in an old truck, sporting a cowboy hat. It’s no wonder that honky tonks from coast to coast have become twice as busy as they were two decades ago.

The illusion is real. But how real is the illusion?

As I write this, I’ve lived in Texas for the better part of 15 years.

I’ve spent a fair bit of this time in boots and Wranglers, with pearl snaps adorning my shirts. I’ve sported this look to the office from time to time, and to countless rodeos and concerts.

Such a look is not out of place in the Lone Star State. But every now and then, someone will see it and ask if I’m playing cowboy.

When they do, I’m obliged to remind them that I’ve rode horses before. That I’ve milked cows, cleaned stalls, cleared mud from hooves, and fetched eggs from the chicken coop.

I may not be a cowboy, but I’m more than an imitator.

These bona fides matter to me. Because authenticity matters.

You see, I’ve viewed myself as a Texan from my earliest days living here. But the stigma of being non-native – of growing up beyond the state’s borders – it looms large.

I’ve long known that my zeal for Texas could be miscast as imitation if I wasn’t authentic. And being authentic meant leaning into any prior experience I had with the state’s cultural hallmarks, while becoming a student of the rest.

So yes, I’ve taken steps to assimilate. To make this place a part of me, and myself a part of it.

The same can’t always be said of other non-natives. They might treat the place like an eastern annex of California. Or wear their cowboy hat comically wrong. Or appear like they’re recreating the cover of Varsity Blues, as Bezos did.

When this happens, Texans will grumble and mock the imitators. The natives and the assimilated transplants alike.

For this is not a good look — for any of us. The state’s cultural code must be adhered to for true acceptance to be gained.

I think the same reckoning is needed in country music. So long as bubblegum country rules the roost, the genre will be a shadow of its former glory. And the bar to clear for imitators will be exceptionally low.

Put standards for depth and meaning back into country music, and only the best imitators will cross over. For doing so will require more than a catchy hook and a few superficial lyrics. It will require an immersion — an immersion that yields a more authentic product.

This is worth striving for. Let’s make it real.

Right Move, Wrong Moment

The call came in from a number that looked somewhat familiar. I rushed to take it.

My SUV was at the dealership for repairs, and I figured my service advisor was calling with an update.

I was partially right.

The call was from the dealership. But it came from the sales department.

Sir, I see that your vehicle is in for service. What would it take for us to buy it off you and get you in a new one?

I hadn’t considered the idea. My mind was consumed with fixing what ailed my vehicle, and hopefully not going broke in the process.

I told the sales representative as much, hoping that would end the conversation. But he countered by asking when I might feel differently.

I don’t know, I replied. Maybe when my registration renewal is due in the spring.

Sure enough, when springtime rolled around, I was got a call from the same representative. He was polite, but persistent. Persistent in coaxing me to follow through on the swap he’d proposed.

I wasn’t taking the bait. I politely told the sales representative to leave me alone.

Several years have passed since this encounter. But it remains top of mind for me.

These days, when I drop my vehicle off for service, I expect a call like this. So, I save my service advisor’s phone number in my contact list. And I don’t pick up calls from similar looking numbers.

I know too well who’s on the other end of the line. And I have no interest in playing that game.

There may well be a time when I feel the need to replace my vehicle. Perhaps it will become inoperable, or the repair bills for it will get too high.

But when that day comes, I’d like to be the one initiating the buying process. The same way I did when I purchased my current vehicle.

As far as I’m concerned, a proactive sales motion will always be a case of right move, wrong moment.

Place and time.

They make for odd bedfellows.

One is a physical reality. The other a mental construct.

There are nearly 200 million square miles of places on this earth. Some are inhabitable, others less so. But the forensic proof of their existence is irrefutable.

Time offers a different challenge. Yes, we have clocks and calendars to mark its passage. And nature has its sunrises, sunsets, leaf falls and snowfalls. But even with all that, when is more open to interpretation than where.

Perhaps this is why mastering the moment is so challenging.

We know better than to wander into a burning building on our own accord. But avoiding a building that’s likely to ignite? That’s a trickier proposition.

I learned this principle early on.

During a childhood vacation in Maine, my family ventured across a sandbar from Bar Harbor to a small island.

My parents checked their watches as we ventured across the wet sand. Their behavior seemed curious, but I didn’t question it.

By the time we’d reached the island, I’d all but forgotten about the watches. There were new trails to hike, and new sights to see. I was full of excitement.

My explorations would soon be cut short though, thanks to a warning from my father.

We have to head back now. If we don’t, we’ll be stuck here until tomorrow.

You see, the tide was coming back in, and the sandbar we’d crossed would soon be submerged. Our only route back to shore was evaporating.

So, we hustled our way back across the sandbar. But once we emerged in Bar Harbor, I was forever changed.

No longer would I be ignorant of the moment. I would be sure to factor in the when along with the where.

Even if others failed to do the same.

In 2017, a Yale law student named Lina Khan wrote an article that gained national acclaim.

Khan argued that the traditional markers of antitrust regulation were outdated and needed reframing.

You see, in previous generations, business monopolies had largely focused on pricing power. As the only game in town for the goods they offered, they could charge as much as they want. And consumers were forced to part with bigger and bigger portions of their budget to get by – at least until antitrust regulators stepped in in.

But now, companies like Amazon were managing to stifle competition while keeping prices low. Such were the advantages of the internet era, where volume alone could yield value.

Consumers were all too happy to feed Amazon’s monopolistic engine. The goods they used to trek to stores for were now even more affordable. And they didn’t need to leave home to get them.

But while consumers were thriving and prices were low, Amazon’s competitors were suffering. Khan saw this as a problem – for commerce and for capitalism. And she argued that antitrust practices needed to shift.

So began a meteoric rise for Khan’s career. The newly minted Juris Doctor soon found work in think tanks, academia, and government. By 2021, she had risen to the top post at the Federal Trade Commission.

Khan wasted no time getting to work. The FTC quickly objected to a series of corporate mergers. And the agency got involved in several high-profile investigations of Amazon and other technology giants.

The FTC notched some major wins during this time. It blocked the merger of grocery chains Albertsons and Kroger. And it helped derail several consolidation attempts for budget airlines.

But such victories often proved hollow.

You see, Khan’s crusade came in the wake of major economic headwinds. A dissipating pandemic, a global supply chain snarl, and a bout of inflation had made life difficult for businesses and consumers alike.

Instead of lining their pockets through mergers, many businesses were seeking consolidation simply to survive. And when the FTC blocked their path, they fell apart.

Albertsons and Kroger have closed many locations since their merger went up in smoke. Spirit Airlines – one of the budget airlines the FTC helped thwart – has since gone bankrupt. And these developments have left consumers with fewer options and persistently higher prices.

Khan’s effort to stiffen antitrust enforcement might have been the right move. But it was executed at the wrong moment. And America suffered for it.

Place and time mean everything.

Some years back, I was at an arcade when my friends goaded me into trying out the fighter jet simulator.

I had never operated one of those before, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I concocted a plan anyway.

The button under my left thumb controlled the jet’s gun, while the button under my right thumb launched missiles.

I knew that each weapon could represent the right move. But only at the right moment.

So, as the simulator reached “cruising altitude,” I’d look for enemy aircraft in the area. If they appeared close, I’d fire the gun a time or two. And if they seemed to be further away, I’d launch a missile.

By the time the ride was over, I’d maintained a respectable score.

Here in the ride of life, it’s critical that we all follow similar guidance. That we avoid succumbing to rigidity and stubborn ideology. That we consider the when as much as the what.

The right move only works when deployed at the right moment.

Let us not forsake one for the other.

Author: Dylan Brooks