Category: Thoughts

The Option Anvil

There’s a picture that used to hang on the wall in my childhood home.

I’m probably 8 years old in this photograph. I’m wearing slacks and a button-down shirt. My chin is resting in the palm of my hand as I peer over a chessboard.

My parents have long adored this picture. Its candid nature seemed reminiscent of an oil painting. And it captured my essence as a child — pensive, quiet, and conscientious.

An image like this might seem to be a prelude. It might appear to be a hint of what was to come. If I took such a calculated approach to a complicated game back then, one might think, I’ve surely grown into a master tactician by now.

But appearances can be deceiving.

Yes, I was staring at a chessboard. But there were no kings or queens or rooks atop it. In their place were nondescript circular game pieces, which were either painted black or white.

Yes, this image was of me playing checkers.

Why was I so pensive, so stoic? Why was I so indecisive while playing such a straightforward game?

It all had to do with the burden of choice in my midst.

Give me liberty or give me death!

Such were the famous words of Patrick Henry. This rallying cry, uttered during a speech at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775, helped inspire the Declaration of Independence a year later. And its legacy perseveres in our society today.

Freedom is a hallmark of our nation. The liberty to chart our own path is paramount.

But for all the time we spend defending this right, we forget one thing. The actual process of choosing between options is extremely difficult.

You see, choice introduces us to both reward and risk. If we choose properly, we find ourselves in an advantageous position. But if we don’t, we face the embers of rebuke and the sting of regret.

In the moment, it can be hard to identify which decision will lead to the right outcome. It’s as if we’re playing Let’s Make a Deal and guessing what’s behind each door.

So, we waver. We procrastinate. We do all we can to mitigate the damage of a wrong choice.

And in the process, the decision gains mass. It transforms into an option anvil, weighing us down.

Yes, it sure seems liberty comes with its own set of shackles.

Steve Jobs was a visionary. A pioneer. An empire builder.

The legacy of Apple’s founder is multifaceted. But one aspect of it is particularly poignant.

Jobs was known to wear the same outfit to work, day after day. Tennis shoes, jeans, and a black turtleneck. That look was omnipresent in the keynote addresses Jobs delivered year after year. And it became synonymous with Jobs himself.

Why would Jobs opt for such a basic wardrobe? Why wouldn’t he use some of his vast fortune on flashier styles?

It was all a matter of choice.

As the head of a leading technology company, Jobs had plenty of monumental decisions to contend with each day. He didn’t want his choice of clothes to be one of them, so he removed any ambiguity from the equation.

Eventually, others in the tech industry followed this principle. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was known to wear hoodies to the office each day. Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes tried to evoke Jobs with her own set of black turtlenecks.

This all might seem quirky and quaint, particularly to those of us far removed from Silicon Valley. But there’s something deeper at play.

Even though these tech tycoons had enormous power and influence, they still recognized the toll that decisions can exert. So, they sought to budget their energy, expending it on only the most consequential of choices. It was their way of making that option anvil just a tad lighter.

We might not have the means to get a wardrobe of black turtlenecks. But we can still emulate the Technorati in this area. And we stand to come out ahead for doing so.

It was the experiment that changed everything.

Back around the year 2000, psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper set up a table of jam samples at a supermarket. The jams were free to try, and shoppers even got a coupon for taking a sample.

It all seemed simple enough. But there was a catch.

The amount of jam available for sampling was not constant. On one day, shoppers saw six options at the table. On another, they saw 24.

And that difference in sample size led to differences in behavior. Far more people bought jam when they had six options to choose from than when they had 24 to consider.

These results might seem counterintuitive. In the land of Give me liberty or give me death, going with the narrower solution set seems downright unpatriotic. And yet, The Jam Study proves that abundant choice can overwhelm us. The option anvil is quite real.

There are reminders of this research all around us. For instance, modern restaurants will often model their menus after Chipotle or Five Guys, rather than The Cheesecake Factory. And many service providers have bucketed their offerings into three tiers, rather than selling individual products piecemeal.

These businesses have done their homework. To them, the cost of indecisiveness outweighs the benefits of expansive choice.

And yet, we individuals still find ourselves behind the curve. We demand all the choices, even though it’s obvious that we buckle under their weight.

It’s a grim scene. But the die is not cast.

We can still chart a more sustainable destiny. We can note the impacts of a gauntlet of decisions. And we can be intentional about which ones we should pursue.

Yes, this process gives us one more decision to navigate. And no, it doesn’t mean that we get exactly what we want all the time.

But such a tradeoff can help improve our stamina. It can make us more adaptable, focused, and resilient. It can get free us from that option anvil, for once and for all.

I believe that’s a choice worth making. Do you?

Crisis of Consideration

They were supposed to be a juggernaut.

The 2012-2013 version of the Los Angeles Lakers had it all, from a professional basketball context. An all-time great in Kobe Bryant. A former Most Valuable Player in Steve Nash. A former Defensive Player of the Year in Dwight Howard. And a supporting cast of players that were mostly in the prime of their careers.

It was an accumulation of talent that many considered among the best of all-time in the National Basketball Association.

While another ballyhooed superteam across the country — the Miami Heat — was still celebrating their championship run from the season prior, the Lakers seemed poised to win the next title. All they had to do is show up.

Or so everyone thought.

The team lost four of its first five games, costing the head coach his job. But the coaching change did little to change the team’s fortunes, as the Lakers continued to lose more games than they won for several more months.

It took a late-season surge to push the team’s record over the breakeven mark. Los Angeles didn’t clinch a playoff spot until the last day of the season. And the San Antonio Spurs made quick work of them in the postseason — winning four straight lopsided games.

What on earth happened to the Los Angeles Lakers?

There are plenty of explanations. The team struggled to learn a new offensive system, which led directly to the coaching change. Many of the team’s best players — who were on the wrong side of 30 years old — battled through injuries.

But less talented teams than the Lakers had encountered these setbacks before. And they’d persevered anyway. So why did the Lakers fold like a paper tent in a breeze?

The answer can be summed up in one word: Ego.

Too many members of the 2012-2013 Lakers were in it for themselves. They sought to play their game, rather than buy into the team dynamic. Tension built in the locker room, most notably between Bryant and Howard. And the Lakers never seemed to be all that cohesive on the basketball court as a result.

Yes, the Lakers suffered from a crisis of consideration that doomed their season. But they weren’t alone.

There’s a scourge on our society. A pervasive ailment that festers.

Coast to coast, in big cities and small towns, we must deal with people being wholly inconsiderate.

This takes many forms. It might be a driver who clogs the left lane while keeping their vehicle at a snail’s pace. Or a self-anointed VIP who cuts the line to get served first. Or a biker who revs his Harley engine in a residential neighborhood at 11 PM on a weeknight.

In all cases, the offender is thinking me, not we. They zone in on their own wants and needs, without a single thought to the disruption they cause others.

For a long time, this crisis went unaddressed. The inconsiderate continued with their shenanigans, while those aggrieved by their actions quietly fumed.

But recently, things have started to change.

Going through a public health crisis has raised the stakes of inconsideration. Now, one self-serving action can put countless lives in the balance.

With so much on the line, we feel emboldened to call out inconsiderate behavior. And laying out the dire consequences helps us demand change.

Sometimes, this leads to tangible improvements. Sometimes, the targets of our ire see shame in their oversight and vow to be better.

But other times, there is blowback. Those who act boorishly respond with aggression instead of change. And the intense backlash only helps to deepen the fissures omnipresent in our society.

Of course, we’d prefer the first outcome to the second one. But either result is better than the status quo.

You see, inconsideration is about more than bucking rules and customs. It also represents a failure of common understanding. A gap between perceptions of the world around us.

To emerge from this quagmire, we need to bridge that gap. But how?

I lay in bed in the middle of the night, unable to sleep.

Insomnia wasn’t the culprit. Neither was anxiety.

No, the cause of my sleeplessness was a constant barrage of death metal cascading through the wall from the apartment next door. The music was persistent, and it was unavoidable.

Enraged, I marched out to the hallway and knocked on my neighbor’s door. After getting no response, I called the apartment’s courtesy officer and alerted them to the issue. Finally, I abandoned my bedroom, resigning myself to a night on the couch.

After this hellacious night, all was well for a while. As the days went by, I nearly forgot that the incident even happened.

But about a month later, it returned. I once again woke up in the middle of the night, tortured by the angry tones of death metal.

This time, I emailed the apartment’s community administrator to alert them of the situation. I didn’t want to rock the boat too much, but I knew my neighbor was flouting the community’s noise rules. I wanted that neighbor to get fined.

I never did hear back from the administrator. But the death metal once again went away the following evening. Normalcy seemed to have taken over.

But then, a few weeks after this, the music returned. By now, I was at my wits end. I took out a pen and a Post-It note, and wrote:

Please be a good neighbor and stop playing death metal at 11 PM on a Monday night. Some of us are trying to sleep.

I taped the note to my neighbor’s door, retreated to my apartment, and slept on the couch again.

The next day, I was greeted with the following note on my door:

Sorry, fell asleep while it was playing. Moving out next month, so it won’t be me next time.

I can’t verify if my neighbor did, indeed move out in the subsequent month. But I never was woken up by death metal again.

This whole saga was unpleasant. No one likes to see their sleep patterns disrupted.

But its resolution shows the way out of the crisis of consideration.

That way out is through communication.

Now, Post-It notes are admittedly a clunky way of achieving that objective. But regardless of style points, they did the trick.

Maybe we can all take a page from this book. Maybe we can focus on communicating, instead of fuming about the behavior of others. Maybe we can stop pining for the end outcome and start thinking about the journey needed to get there.

It’s the considerate thing to do. So let’s get it done.

On Whiplash

I had a pit in my stomach.

I just had finished work on a college newscast that was an abject disaster.

The production crew had missed their cues. The anchors had botched their scripts. And I, the producer, had frozen like a deer in the headlights amid all this chaos.

This all resulted in a disjointed performance that was readily evident to anyone watching on their television sets. It felt as if we’d all wandered into the middle of Times Square in our underwear.

It didn’t matter that our viewership was in the dozens, not the millions. Everyone involved with the newscast was in a dour mood, even before our faculty advisor lit into us in the post-show meeting.

I felt directly responsible for the debacle. So, I emailed the advisor to apologize.

She quickly responded, stating that there was plenty of blame to go around, but that such matters were irrelevant. It was more important, she stated, for everyone to learn from the mistakes moving forward.

Onward and upward, she concluded.

I had never heard that phrase before. But after that moment, it would become all I would hear.

Whenever I found myself facing a setback, onward and upward would be a rallying cry. The three-word pep talk reminded me to focus on the future, rather than dwelling on the past.

I’m haven’t embraced this mantra alone. It’s been a rallying cry in America for generations. But is it the right one?

Time moves in one direction. And so do we.

With apologies to Benjamin Button and the best attempts of beauty products everywhere, we don’t get younger with time. We wear its impact as we mature and then decline.

The same concept is true for our society. Over the years, it’s matured from a nebulous concept into something stronger and more versatile. Someday, its decline will come. But we will continue to plow forward through that process.

These truths are self-evident. Our ancestors would be enthralled by the cultural and technological opportunities we have today. And while such innovations and adaptations are far from perfect, they still represent progress.

We don’t necessarily take all this for granted. But we have internalized onward and upward into our own processes. We aspire to land better roles throughout our careers and to improve as spouses and parents outside of the office. More broadly, we seek to innovate and drive transformational change.

This ethos has generally led to real-world rewards, spurring us to lean into the strategy ever more. But occasionally, the payoff hasn’t been there. Every now and then, we’re forced backwards, despite our best efforts to churn ahead.

And when this happens, we encounter whiplash.

Whiplash is the feeling you get when you’re riding in a car, and it stops short. It’s the jolting sensation that ensues when your momentum is halted faster than you can adjust to it.

Whiplash is particularly unpleasant because we don’t plan for it. It strikes without warning, leaving us in a daze.

Whiplash forces us to react. But that needn’t be our only response.

Few phenomena are as baffling as pandemics.

Human behavior, for all its irrationality, can be mapped into distinct patterns. We have centuries of historical texts and the work of esteemed psychologists to thank for that.

But viral microbes don’t show such predictability. And trying to forecast their attack has proven futile.

The COVID pandemic has punctuated this fact. Despite our best efforts, we’ve found ourselves one step behind at every turn.

At first, we weren’t sure how to protect ourselves from the virus. We focused on washing our hands and disinfecting surfaces, even though those efforts proved to have little effect in warding off the malady.

Gradually, we started to get the upper hand. Namely, we built strategies for preventing mass exposure to the bug.

We shifted many of our jobs away from offices. We wore face masks to the grocery store. We developed vaccines against the virus in record time and made progress with antiviral pills.

These efforts helped us approach pre-pandemic normalcy. With their assistance, we started to reopen our doors, and to restore the traditions the virus had stolen from us.

But just as the finish line seemed in sight, new variants of the virus appeared. Their presence evaded many of the defenses we’d built, halting our progress.

This reality hit hard for many of us. After getting a taste of semi-normalcy, this jolt back to the early days of the pandemic crushed our resolve. It’s led us to think that onward and upward was nothing more than a mirage.

I know this as well as anyone.

In the early days of the pandemic, I isolated myself from the world. I restricted my movements to a five-mile radius of my home for three months, only venturing outside to exercise, take a stroll, or shop for essentials. It was a demoralizing experience, even for an introvert like me.

In the many months since that period, I’ve worked relentlessly on getting back what I’d lost. I’ve reconnected with friends and family, returned to restaurants, and resumed traveling. I’ve done all this with the understanding that we were turning the corner in the pandemic, and that I’d have much more protection against the virus.

But the variants provided a brutal reality check. It turns out I was much less protected from infection than I’d hoped. And after all that time propelling ahead, the whiplash of this realization hit me hard.

I found my resiliency at its limits, and I was left frustrated at the situation at hand. But I turned my anger inwards as well, chastising myself for not anticipating such setbacks in the first place.

My experience likely wasn’t singular. I’m sure there were others out there kicking themselves for not seeing this setback coming.

But are those who wallow in regret realistic in their expectations?

Protection.

It’s the fundamental human condition.

Protection is the reason we lock our doors. Protection is the reason we put on a coat when it’s cold. Protection is the reason we curl into a ball when facing trauma.

Whiplash violates the laws of protection. It strikes with brutal efficiency, reminding us how vulnerable we really are.

We loathe that feeling of exposure. So, we play Monday Morning Quarterback, thinking about how we could have avoided the situation.

This is toxic.

For the more we dwell in the past, the less prepared we are for the future. The next bout of whiplash will jolt us back. And the one after that. And the one after that.

It’s far better to take the approach my advisor espoused. To boldly look to the future — but with a twist.

That twist is to consider all possibilities. To prepare for the best-case scenario but anticipate setbacks.

Such an approach allows us to hedge our bets. It leaves us less prone to the effects of whiplash. And it strengthens our resolve.

In an unpredictable world, that’s the best we can ask for. It’s time that we ask it over ourselves.

Rounding Error

On a cool fall evening, I put on my workout clothes, laced up my running shoes, and went for a run.

I didn’t venture far – only a mile through my neighborhood. But the fact that I was even on the trot at all on this day was notable.

For this was supposed to be a rest day – a day where I did no running at all. And yet, here I was, breaking my own rules.

Why? Because this was the last day of November. I’d run 129 miles in the month to date, and I was determined to up that to 130 before the new month set in.

The quest for a round number was mostly symbolic. It was a similar quest to the one I often endured at the gas station, as I’d top off the tank in my SUV to get to an exact dollar amount. Or to the energy I summoned watching late-season baseball games, hoping my favorite player would connect for his 30th home run.

Should it have really mattered if I ended my month with 129 miles run? Or if I left the gas station with a $29.99 gasoline bill. Or if I cheered for a player with 29 long balls on the season?

No. No, it should not have.

But did it matter? Yes, it absolutely did.

Why do we worry so much about numbers? Why do we obsess about milestones the way that I did?

I think a lot comes down to commonality. We speak different languages, belong to different cultures, and contend with different climate patterns across the globe. But numbers? Numbers transcend the gap.

Sure, there are some exceptions. Monetary values vary from country to country. Temperature measures can vary between Fahrenheit and Celsius.

But even with those exceptions, the rules of mathematics are among the few things we share. We can tell stories with the numbers we see on a screen or a piece of paper. And, if we’re deft enough, we can manipulate those stories to our benefit.

Statistics help us to spin this yarn. They provide us with a set of rules and models to contextualize our experience. They also help us gauge our response.

One common term in statistics is rounding error. This refers to a difference that’s so trivial that it’s hardly even worthy of paying attention to.

I’ve used this descriptor for a great many things. For instance, I infamously described the early spread of COVID as a rounding error — pointing out that case counts were relatively low when compared to the size of the population.

I was wrong in that assessment. But there are so many other opportunities out there for me to make the right call with rounding errors.

Why don’t I accept a number that ends in a 9? Why do I go the extra mile for posterity’s sake?

Come to think of it, why do we all?

As I write this, another year is coming to an end.

The world is awash with Best Of and Year in Review lists, along with the angsty, hopeful wishes for the year to come.

But when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, will things really be all that different? Likely not. And even if so, not instantly.

As I’ve written before, the changing of a calendar is little more than a rounding error. It’s not as significant as we seem to make it.

Yet, we can’t help ourselves. We do all we can to play up the occasion, to demand more of it than it could ever possibly deliver.

And when the magic ceases to appear on cue, we pledge to try again next year. The habit becomes embedded, even as its futility comes more and more into focus.

It’s maddening, but it’s inevitable. A year, a month, a week — these are the patterns we know. Without their mileposts guiding our way, we’re lost.

And with them guiding our way, we might still be lost.

Where do rounding errors come from?

Are they the purview of sloppy mathematics? Are they functions of shortcuts and loopholes?

Not exactly.

You see, math is stunningly precise. One and three make four. Half of 100 is 50. These statements are true as day.

But math also works best when things are linear. When there are straight lines and edges.

When that environment disappears, things can get downright messy.

Measuring anything that’s circular often requires a long series of decimals. It’s a pain to calculate, a pain to memorize and a pain to write out for others to see.

So, we split the difference. We round up or round down those decimal strings to simpler numbers. And we trivialize everything that gets approximated, using the rounding error label.

This happens more often than we realize. For we live on a sphere that spins on its axis as it orbits the sun.

Circles are a constant in our lives. And so are our imprecise attempts to measure them.

That means a lot of rounding errors. Errors that — over time — can knock us off course.

Not long after I trivialized a burgeoning pandemic as a rounding error, something unusual occurred.

A date appeared on my calendar that hadn’t been there the year before. February 29th.

Yes, it was a leap year. I made the most of my extra day — volunteering in a community kitchen and going shopping.

Leap years are themselves functions of rounding errors. Earth’s orbit of the sun takes slightly more than 365 days to complete. To keep calendars from breaking, we take those fractions of a day and tack them onto the calendar every four years.

This leap day took place two months after the pageantry of New Year’s. The resolutions were already toast, the champagne and party hats were a distant memory. And the virus that would ultimately upend our lives had yet to overrun America.

Life was good at this moment. But by the time New Year’s Eve came back around, such good vibes were all but forgotten. Anything that happened before the virus, the lockdowns, and the misery was a rounding error. It was cast out of the equation.

It all made for a distorted picture — the leap year, the disregarded early months. It was as if we took a snapshot and didn’t let it fully develop.

We can do so much better than we did then. Not by eliminating the rounding errors, but by acknowledging them.

Yes, we can admit that these constructs we rely on are approximations. We can accept that time is murkier than we wish it to be. And we can embrace such imperfections, rather than attempting to rationalize them away.

If we do all this, we won’t just escape the hamster wheel of New Year’s expectations. We’ll find a better, more sustainable way to gauge our progress and tell our story.

We’ll round into form — without an error to be found. And that’s a quest worth pursuing.

Flow States

I’m in the zone.

It’s a common line. A cliched line. One that’s been parodied to great effect.

We use this statement because we’re deeply familiar with it. We know what it’s like to be keyed in. We recognize just how special that feeling can be.

When everything clicks, time slows down. Distractions fade away. And productivity soars.

Psychologists call this sensation a flow state. And the rhythm it brings can be addictive.

We want it. We need it.

So, we chase flow down doggedly. And once we capture it, we try to hold onto it for as long as we can.

But all too often, this process is more fraught than roping the wind.

For more than six years, I’ve had a familiar routine.

Each week, I’ll draft and publish an article here on Words of the West. This has happened without fail.

There are plenty of other activities I’ve taken part in regularly during that time. Cooking. Running. Going to work.

But I’ve taken a weeklong vacation from work before. I’ve gone a week where I exclusively eaten out. I’ve even spent a week without hitting the pavement in my running shoes.

In a world where routines are so often broken, writing for this forum has been my only constant.

Maintaining this pattern of weekly articles has come with challenges. Finding topics hasn’t always been easy. The right words to share have often proved elusive.

But the biggest challenge has been harnessing a flow state when I write.

Sometimes, I’ll catch lightning in a bottle and draft an article in a single sitting. But generally, my writing process is a multi-day slog.

This article itself is a great example of this struggle. I’d planned on writing about flow states months ago. But despite my best efforts, I found myself lacking any sense of rhythm each week. So, I kept pushing the article back.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was trying to write about flow. And yet, flow was nowhere to be found.

This bothered me.

After all, how would anyone take me seriously if I couldn’t practice what I preached? I felt like a charlatan, an imposter.

But maybe, I was looking at this situation all wrong.

Each day, we battle against two opposing forces.

One demands excellence out of us. And the other demands consistency from us.

We can attain either one of these feats. But generally, we can’t manage both.

For we are not machines or robots. We are humans with flaws and imperfections. And so, our performance is bound to vary.

The question then, is which demand to prioritize — the standard or the schedule. Do we wait for inspiration to find us, and save our working moments for when we’re in a flow state? Or do we show up day after day, knowing that what we contribute might not always be up to par?

The choice is often made for us. We have bills to pay and mouths to feed. And our capitalist society frowns on absenteeism. Add it all up, and we’re obliged to keep showing up, for better or for worse.

But strangely, this setup also feeds our obsession with flow. For the idea of a flow state seems to bridge the gap between these forces. It seems to offer us high performance, and deliver it daily.

If only it were that easy.

In the early 2000s, a young golf phenom grabbed headlines around the world.

The phenom was named Tiger Woods. And his achievements were truly noteworthy.

Woods won 10 major golf championships before his 30th birthday, often in dominant fashion. Nothing seemed to faze him. He made an immensely challenging sport look easy.

Prognosticators kept trying to find the key to Woods’ dominance. Was it his ability on tee shots? Was it his iron game? His putting? Maybe it was his weightlifting regimen or his diet.

Ultimately, pundits did find the secret ingredient — Woods’ focus. In a sport where even the best athletes get rattled, Woods never seemed to. He was able to tune out the distractions and zero in on the task at hand, tournament after tournament.

Yes, Woods was a master at finding a flow state and harnessing it for the long haul. It seemed nothing would stop him.

Then, his father tragically passed away.

Woods took some time away from the PGA Tour to grieve. But when he returned for the U.S. Open, he didn’t look right. His flow state was broken, his focus was shoddy, and his golf shots were wayward. He didn’t qualify for the last two rounds of the tournament.

This wasn’t the end of the line for Woods. He went on to win five more major championships and scores of PGA Tour events. But the spell had been broken, and the utter dominance of his early career was gone.

It turns out that Woods was human after all. But those flaws and imperfections only made him more endearing to fans. And his willingness to keep showing up — even when he wasn’t on top of his game — became a cornerstone of his legacy.

Flow states? They were hardly the entire story.

I am not like Tiger Woods.

I’m not a groundbreaking athlete with awards and trophies to my name. I’m simply a modest writer who’s looking to connect with his audience.

And yet, I often find myself mimicking early-career Tiger when I write. I catch myself attempting to summon flow states at will and to tune out everything that makes me human. This ploy invariably fails, leaving me bitter and frustrated. And my writing suffers as well.

Maybe it’s time that I emulate late-career Tiger. Maybe it’s time that I value the ability to keep showing up, even when I’m not at my best. Maybe it’s time that I give grit a fair shake.

Such a shift in focus won’t take the shine off any moments of excellence I might still encounter. But they could help me appreciate those moments more.

And that balance of perseverance and commitment — that’s the only zone we need to be in.

Soft Power

On June 12, 1987, the world changed with six words.

Those words came from Ronald Reagan, who was the United States President at the time. And they took place in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

The image of the American president speaking in the shadow of Germany’s most famous landmark should have been glorious and awe-inspiring. It was anything but.

For the Cold War was in full swing. Tensions were high. And a hideous concrete barrier stood between Reagan and the iconic gate.

That barrier, of course, was the Berlin Wall. A heavily fortified edifice that split the city in half and had come to symbolize the divide between the Soviet Union and the West.

Reagan surely knew why the Berlin Wall was there. But he also recognized that it didn’t need to be there. What was built up could always be removed.

And so, he called on his Soviet counterpart – General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev – to do just that.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, he exclaimed. The crowd in front of him cheered voraciously.

The Soviet premier didn’t come down to the Brandenburg Gate with a sledgehammer on that day, or any other. But he surely heard Reagan’s words. The whole world did.

And less than 30 months after Reagan’s speech, the Berlin Wall did indeed fall.

The Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War ended. And Berlin was at last reunified.

It was a turning point in history — an exuberant, peaceful moment. And it might not have happened that way without Reagan’s words.

Reagan’s tactics that June day in Berlin were a classic example of what’s known as Soft Power.

This term – coined by political scientist Joseph Nye — refers to a nation’s ability to persuade others to do what it wants without force or direct coercion.

Instead of relying on military offensives, economic sanctions, or trade embargoes to influence change, Soft Power practitioners use indirect methods to get what they want.

They might spout off a few well-timed words to turn the tide of public perception. They might lean on the titans of industry within their borders to transform economic markets a continent away. They might rely on entertainment conglomerates at home to model cultural behaviors abroad.

Soft Power has existed for centuries. But few have mastered it as the United States has. Our prowess in this area is so pronounced that it’s practically taken for granted.

Invade Cuba with Starbucks and Coca-Cola, goes one old joke. The Communist regime will fall within a day.

It was going to take more than Coca-Cola to topple the Soviet Union though. So, Reagan —a man who was dubbed The Great Communicator — used his voice instead. He pounced on Gorbachev’s prior platitudes of openness, calling the premier’s bluff by demanding action.

Reagan knew full well that Gorbachev couldn’t take down the Berlin Wall. What lay behind it was simply too ghastly to display.

But now, thanks to Reagan’s words, everyone was wondering what lay behind the curtain. Was the Soviet Bloc truly as fearsome as its nuclear arsenal? Or was it just a house of cards?

It turned out to be the latter. And because of that, a 30-year military stalemate ended without a single shot fired.

Decades have now passed since the Soviet Union fell. And in that time, the world has soured on Soft Power.

What was once an invaluable diplomatic tool is now a mark of exploitation. A symbol of imperialist meddling. A usurping of a sovereign nation’s destiny.

Such views are not without merit. Soft Power has surely been abused plenty over the years.

But leaving well enough alone isn’t exactly a panacea either.

You see, as humans, we have a propensity to emulate behavior. This tendency is why parents have such an impact on young children. It’s why education so frequently takes place in group settings. And it’s why traditions remain resonant through the generations.

Dismantling Soft Power leaves societies without influencers to emulate. And in that vacuum malfeasance can grow.

It’s no wonder that the most isolated nations tend to be the most corrupt, the most dangerous, and the most volatile. It’s hard to thrive in the shadows. Just look at the Soviet Union.

Yes, Soft Power itself is not a cancer. In fact, it can be a force for good.

But only if we use it responsibly.

I don’t work for the government. I didn’t study political science in school. And I’m hardly versed in international affairs.

Yet, I consider myself a practitioner of Soft Power.

For I work in a sizable organization. One with hundreds of employees, scattered across multiple states.

If I want to influence how we go about our business, brute force isn’t an option. I can’t pull rank, and I don’t have a bullhorn large enough to carry across time zones.

Soft Power is my only option for leaving my mark on my organization’s processes. I must rely on influence, rather than edict.

Some may bristle at this scenario. But I love it.

I like impacting change through influence. I like modeling behavior. I like building a coalition to get everyone pulling in the same direction.

And most of all, I love what Soft Power requires of me.

It requires me to be nuanced and well-rounded. It requires me to truly listen to others and to understand their perspectives. And it requires me to work within those parameters to find an agreeable solution.

This is a much better method of resolution than going into a scenario with guns blazing. I’m far more likely to drive enduring change through Soft Power. And I’m far more likely to remain agreeable through the process.

But I needn’t be the only one to reap these benefits.

In on the Action

As I walked through the grocery store, something caught me off-guard.

The usual brands were front and center in the hard seltzer aisle as I passed it by — Budweiser and Truly and White Claw. But so was Sonic. And there were boxes of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer all over the place.

Now, I’m not a drinker, but I know enough to be perplexed. After all, Sonic is a family-friendly drive-in chain — not a distiller. And Topo Chico? That’s my favorite brand of mineral water — more of a North American Perrier than an Anheuser Busch.

What were these brands all doing masquerading as purveyors of hard seltzer? Heck, what was so special about hard seltzer in the first place?

I found few answers. But as it turned out, I might not have been asking the right questions.

I’m not the oldest book on the shelf. But when I see the younger generation, I feel ancient.

These days, toddlers spend long car trips playing games on digital tablets. Children upload and share videos on their phones. And teenagers use strange slang — like Bae, Turnt and On Fleek.

When I was young, none of this was possible. We’d spend car rides listening to CDs or even cassette tapes. The Internet was slow, laggy, and only available on computers. And the most exotic slang we used was the word Dope.

Yes, much has changed over the years. And as our habits have evolved, so have the products we’ve used and the businesses we’ve frequented.

For example, oil and gas companies had the highest valuations on Wall Street when I was a kid. Their power was solidified through an empire of drilling wells, refineries, and gas stations. And even those of us who were too young to drive recognized their influence, thanks to the branded toy trucks we got as gifts around the holidays each year.

Now, it’s tech companies topping the Fortune 500. Tech companies that either weren’t around in my youth or that were struggling for survival back then. And as they soar, those once-powerful oil and gas companies fade, suffocating under their own antiquity.

The common thread? Money talks and people walk. In a capitalist society, dominance can ultimately be fleeting. Getting in on the action with the next big thing is critical.

That mantra is what led Sonic and Topo Chico into the hard seltzer aisle at my grocery store. But were these moves necessary?

Football can be a chaotic sport.

Gigantic athletes outfitted in shoulder pads and helmets collide with each other dozens of times per game. Quarterbacks make ridiculous throws to their receivers while running for their lives. And on kickoffs and punts, the two teams charge at each other with full heads of steam.

But no action on the gridiron is more chaotic than the fumble.

When a player loses the ball, it falls to the ground with a thud. Suddenly a massive dogpile emerges on top of the ball, with players pushing and shoving to recover it. These scrums are not particularly enjoyable to look at, but they’re ultimately consequential in the game.

Whenever a new trend, technology, or product emerges in society, businesses treat it like it’s a fumble recovery. There’s a mad scramble for position, with little planning or organization behind it.

Eventually the dust settles, and a winner emerges from the pile. And the rest of the pack? They emerge bloodied, bruised, and emptyhanded.

The costs of this failure can be especially profound. Football players can bank on the opportunity the next play will bring. But businesses who come up short after betting it all? They’re toast.

This outcome might seem tragic, but it’s exactly how the powerhouse of American business came to be. There were dozens of soda purveyors in the 19th century. Only Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Dr Pepper ultimately stood the test of time. The same pattern played out for automakers, entertainment studios, and smartphone providers. Where some have survived, many others have failed.

To some degree, this survival of the fittest is now taking shape in the hard seltzer world. As the spiked beverage gains acclaim, plenty of companies are vying for those consumer dollars.

But this time, it’s not just brewers and distillers getting in on the action. Players from outside the sector have entered the game. Players like Sonic or Topo Chico.

Because of all this, it’s pure chaos in the hard seltzer aisle these days. But eventually, the dust will settle, and someone will emerge with the football. Everyone else will fade away.

If Sonic and Topo Chico end up in the everyone else category, the financial implications will be bearable. Families will still frequent Sonic for drive-in dinners. Teetotalers and designated drivers will still drink their weight in Topo Chico sparkling mineral water. Business will go on as it did before.

But their brands will be tarnished in the process. They will be ridiculed for veering too far out of their lane. They will be mocked for rushing to get in on the action — even when it made no sense to do so.

And this criticism? It will be justified.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with reinvention.

Reinvention is what took Apple from a computer company to the multifaceted tech provider we now know it as today. Reinvention is what transformed Scott Harrison from a nightclub promoter into the founder of a groundbreaking charity. Reinvention is what allowed me to leave a budding journalism career and find a foothold in the marketing world.

Reinvention can be a beautiful thing. It can help us shine brighter.

But only if we approach it with purpose.

Apple had an existential purpose behind its reinvention. So did Scott Harrison. And so did I, even though it took me years to uncover it.

But Sonic and Topo Chico? They have no existential purpose behind their reinventions. They’re just jumping on the dogpile and blindly hoping they come away with the football.

Don’t follow their lead. Don’t transform yourself into something else just to be in on the action. All you will find on that path is delusion.

In business and in life, it’s best to be true. True to yourself. True to your values. True to your purpose.

As we head into a time of renewal and transformation, take heed of that. Focus not on the scrum on the periphery. Let your heart and your head be your North Star.

That’s the action you must get in on to thrive.

Retooling the Engine

I ain’t going back.

It’s a refrain uttered all too often.

We’re trained to keep our eyes forward, to focus solely on progress. Returning is a waste of time and effort.

Time only moves in one direction. And so do we, as we grow and age.

It seems pointless to fight that inertia. It seems futile to head back to a place our momentum is carrying us away from.

Yet, in some cases, it could be exactly what’s needed.

At first, there was despair.

As a deadly virus rampaged across continents and the world shut down, we were filled with dread. We feared the virus and its ghastly effects. But we also seemed leery of the interruptions to life as we knew it.

What was work going to look like without an office to go to? What would school look like without the classrooms? What would social interactions be like when we were reduced to squares on a computer screen?

It was all so abrupt. So new, strange, and unwelcome.

But as we settled into our newly remote world, something strange happened. Many of us started to like it.

Our pause was morphing into a full reset. And now, our predicament had turned on its head.

Instead of yearning for the recently departed past, many of us sought to kill it with fire. Many used the pandemic pause to reinvent themselves and to cast off old patterns.

This manifested itself in all kinds of ways.

People quit their jobs in favor of more flexible roles or entrepreneurship. The hospitality industry reeled as more people enjoyed dinner and a movie within the comfort of their own homes. High fashion found itself supplanted by loungewear. And a surge in online shopping tested the limits of both the supply chain and the monetary system.

These changes have been dizzying. And yet, many of us have been more invigorated than nauseated by them.

For these shifts optimize our lives. They remove the inconvenience and unpleasantness, leaving us with a more satisfying existence.

In short, they represent a pipe dream. But with that smoke comes mirrors.

In those early days of the COVID pandemic, my experience wasn’t all that different from everyone else’s.

Namely, I spent most of my time at home.

I handled tasks for my job from a laptop computer on my dining room table. I prepared meals in my kitchen. I read, wrote, and occasionally watched television.

I only left my home for exercise — as I went for an outdoor run or walk each day. Even then, I kept to myself.

After about a month, I’d gotten used to the remote lifestyle. But as others were leaning into it, I was seeking its expiration date.

You see, by most measures, home confinement had suited me well. I was healthy. I was safe. I was still drawing a paycheck.

But home confinement hadn’t suited me. This was not the way I wanted to live in perpetuity.

I had rather enjoyed much of what I’d given up. I liked socializing with friends. I liked going to sports arenas and movie theaters. I even liked my daily commute to the office.

Plus, I knew there was a cost to my bubbled existence. While I sheltered in safety, others risked their wellbeing to provide me that luxury. Trash collectors, grocery store clerks, and utility technicians kept showing up to work in person to support my stay-at-home tendencies. And many of my favorite hospitality venues were on the brink of collapse, suffocating from a lack of the cash flow customers like me normally provided.

I was worn down by the sacrifices I had made in the name of public health. And I was appalled by the inequities such decisions exacerbated in my own community.

And so, I changed things up.

I decided to return to old patterns but in a new way. I decided to retool the engine.

I returned to working in the office. But I stayed a safe distance away from the few co-workers who joined me there.

I started ordering from restaurants again, making a habit of getting dinner elsewhere on Tuesdays. But I mostly relied on takeout and curbside pickup.

And I began to socialize with friends again. But I was far more intentional about the activities I’d take part in with them.

These might seem like small adaptations. Yet, they made a world of difference for me.

Embracing the familiar lifted a weight off my shoulders. Doing so in a new way reduced the risk that the familiar still posed.

Yes, in the darkness of those days, I seem to have stumbled upon something significant. I’d found a torch to carry forward.

These days, things are quite different.

The virus is still here, but there are tools to fight it. More of the familiar is emerging from the woodwork. And I’m back to gathering in large groups, attending live events, and traveling domestically.

Even so, I continue to retool the engine. I remain vigilant about which group activities or live events I attend. And I’m far more efficient when it comes to traveling.

Yes, I’ve gone through a reset of sorts. But instead of rewriting my story entirely, I’m iterating on the chapters that have already been written. I’m taking the best of my pre-pandemic existence and leaving the rest.

I believe this approach is sustainable, scalable, and resilient. It allows room for growth without incurring undue turbulence. And it doesn’t require us to pick sides.

We live in a polarized society.

The fault lines that divide us are too numerous to count. But many involve the subject of change.

At any inflection point, there are those who lean wholeheartedly into change and those who resist it tooth and nail. The ground between them cracks and splinters. And soon a chasm emerges.

Our pandemic-induced reset follows this pattern. Yes, many reinvented themselves during this time, swearing off old behaviors and activities. But others demanded the unequivocal return of those same behaviors and activities. The chasm between the two groups grew and tension built.

This outcome could have been avoided if we had sought the middle ground.

If more of us had committed to retooling the engine, perhaps the future of work wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue. Perhaps the hospitality industry wouldn’t be hanging by a thread. Perhaps travel would be more convenient.

Our choices, our impulses — they’ve made this mess. But there’s still time to clean things up.

We can still improve the patterns we once espoused — rather than making them as take it or leave it propositions. We can still commit to incremental improvements, instead of just disruptive change.

Such choices might not grab a ton of attention. But they could benefit us all.

Let’s at least take the time to consider them.

Turkey and Tradition

It’s like clockwork.

Every year, as mid-November approaches, the temperatures drop, the leaves fall, and we focus our gaze on a particular type of bird.

I’m talking, of course, about the turkey.

Turkeys exist all over this land — on farms and in the wild. And most of the year, we hardly notice their presence. But as Thanksgiving approaches, we can’t stop thinking about them.

Just about every ad we see this time of year features some sort of turkey pun. The supermarkets are overloaded with packaged birds, ready to cook. And social media is rife with advice for brining, frying, or otherwise roasting a turkey for the holiday.

Few other animals get this treatment — a day where they’re on the menu nationwide and garner all our attention. Turkeys are unique in that way.

But should they be?

As a kid, I was always enamored by Thanksgiving. It was a holiday my family would spend with relatives who we didn’t see often. And it was bereft of most of the burden of customs or religious connotations that Halloween and Christmas had, respectively.

That said, there were some notable staples of the holiday. Most notably, the menu.

There was little freelancing when it came to Thanksgiving fare. Households were expected to serve mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, gravy, dressing, and turkey.

I have no idea where this menu came from. Few, if any, of those dishes were in existence at the time of the first Thanksgiving feast in the 1600s.

Yet, these delicacies had reached critical mass. They seemed to be the only items people would talk about. And they were the only dishes Americans were expected to serve.

I was a picky eater growing up, so most of the vegetables, sides, and sauces didn’t appeal to me. That left turkey as my go-to option.

I would wake up on Thanksgiving morning thinking about the turkey feast to come. By the time the evening arrived, I was practically salivating at the sight of the carved bird on the table.

Still, as I sank my teeth into that first bite, I would inevitably find myself disappointed.

The bird itself wasn’t the problem. It was always prepared to perfection.

No, the problem was that I just did not much like turkey. It was too gamey for my liking, and the tryptophan within it would make me sleepy.

At first, I struggled with this disconnect. How could I reject the crown jewel of Thanksgiving dinner? I tried to bury my feelings, only for them to re-emerge a year later.

Eventually, I relented. I accepted that I didn’t like turkey and possibly never would. As such, I stopped loading my plate with it at Thanksgiving dinner.

I started preparing a brisket for Thanksgiving around this time. I did this simply so that there would be a dish on the table that I’d be excited to eat.

But as it turned out, my brisket was almost as big a hit as the turkey itself. My relatives lined up to try it. There were no leftovers to bring home, only requests that I bring more brisket next year.

So, the following year, I did. And the year after that. And the year after that.

I might have broken with the Thanksgiving gospel, but in doing so, I’d forged a new, more resonant tradition.

Who are the arbiters of the customs we follow?

Often, religious organizations come to mind. Or maybe government entities. Or even social entities, such as neighborhood groups.

Each of these structures has the power of trust, a broad following, and mass communication abilities. Yet, they each also have the downsides of preachiness and rigidity.

When you factor in the retail industrial complex, customs get fossilized. We live in a capitalist society, and businesses depend on norms to stay profitable and keep the economy afloat.

Ultimately, this all leads to a one-two punch. A form of authority establishes expectations, and retailers tell us what to buy to stay in compliance.

This is what creates our strict system of traditions, including the Thanksgiving turkey feast. It’s not an organic, grassroots process. It’s heavily manufactured.

The end effect matches a scene from the movie Mean Girls. The protagonist, Cady Heron, is invited to sit with the pretentious clique The Plastics in the school lunchroom for the rest of the week. As part of the impromptu invite, she’s given some instructions, including how to dress.

On Wednesdays, we wear pink, says Karen Smith, one of the Plastics.

Sometimes, I think traditions can be like this. Maybe they started out innocuous enough, but they evolve into On Thanksgiving, we eat turkey.

This latent expectation might not seem like a big deal, but its burden can carry a long shadow. In the case of Thanksgiving, turkeys are bulky, costly, and challenging to prepare. Turkeys — along with the rest of the holiday’s staples — fail to cater to the needs of those with dietary restrictions. And the entire idea of a feast can be cumbersome to those without large living spaces or families.

It’s no wonder that the joyful anticipation of holidays like Thanksgiving is all too often supplanted by feelings of dread. Our pursuit of a shared experience comes with strings attached.

But it doesn’t need to.

As we head into another holiday season, something has changed.

That something is us.

Living through the horrors of a global pandemic, the gut-punch of an economic recession, and the social unrest of a society in transition has not been a pleasant experience. But it has been an enlightening one.

Throughout all the turmoil, we’ve been forced to reassess what we’ve taken as gospel. Some traditions, customs, and norms that were once non-negotiable are now anything but.

Thanksgiving dinner can be one of those traditions.

Yes, we should still gather to celebrate. But maybe we can do so in our own way, and on our own terms.

That could mean Thanksgiving without a predefined menu of sides. That could mean Thanksgiving without a massive guest list. And that could even mean Thanksgiving without turkey.

Indeed, as I write this, I’m preparing for a Thanksgiving feast with all these adaptations. It will be a smaller, more intimate gathering, devoid of an excess of side dishes. And instead of a large turkey —or my brisket — there will be a beef roast.

The burden of old traditions has been lifted. And I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

Sum of Its Parts

As I was driving through a residential neighborhood, a new song came on the radio.

Suddenly, I felt the urge to accelerate. I had the strong desire to hit the gas pedal and let it fly.

Remembering where I was, I regained my wits and stayed at an appropriate pace. But I was perplexed about my need for speed.

You see, the song that threatened to turn my foot to lead wasn’t a high-energy tune. It was a classic rock song. And there wasn’t anything obvious within it inspiring me to unleash my inner NASCAR driver.

But as I broke down the song in my mind, some hints started to bubble to the surface. The tempo of the beat. The volume of the bass. The relentlessness of the vocals.

In a vacuum, each of these elements wouldn’t amount to much. Their impact wouldn’t be noticeable.

But when you add them all up, they had me itching to do a bad thing.

Not long before my would-be speeding violation, I was at a friend’s wedding.

This wedding happened to be held at a Catholic church. I’d heard rumors of Catholic weddings taking a bit of time. So, I arrived early and thumbed through the program, looking for clues on how long I’d be in the pews.

On page 3, I found some sheet music. It didn’t look like much — a bunch of lines, symbols, and flourishes. But I could tell by the way the notes were spaced that these hymns were going to be slow-paced. And given how many of them were on subsequent pages, I knew I was going to be in this church for at least an hour.

So, I prepared for the long haul. I focused on my demeanor and tried to act as if I belonged.

This was going to be a challenge. For I’d only been in a Catholic church a handful of times in my life. I was a fish out of water, and I was faking it until I made it.

The details of the sheet music I’d glimpsed at drifted away as I tried desperately to fit in. But as the hymns it documented came to life, I found myself fighting back tears.

The choir was angelic. The congregation was enthralled. And through it all, time started to fade away.

The sheet music, the wedding program, the sanctuary — on their own, they didn’t seem to amount to much. But the whole seemed better than the sum of its parts.

These are but two examples of a phenomenon. A phenomenon of a finished product outshining its individual elements.

We’ve long been accustomed to this. We’ve seen it take shape when we visit Disney World or Universal Studios. We’ve felt it at Cirque du Soleil shows. We’ve even experienced it at local parades and firework shows.

It’s a magical feeling when everything comes together just right. When place and time sync in a manner that speaks to our soul.

We can be intoxicated by this feeling. We tend to chase it relentlessly, investing time, money, and emotional effort into rekindling its flame.

And yet, all too often, we ignore the underlying elements of the magic. We fail to consider what makes these experiences hit just right.

We have no interest in seeing how the sausage gets made. That is, unless it keeps us from speeding recklessly through a neighborhood or ruing the length of a church service.

We’re just fine paying the piper to deliver these experiences on a silver platter. But maybe we shouldn’t be.

Dressed in a button-down shirt and tie, I stood behind a fold-up table. In front of me was a Paper Mache volcano, a jar of baking soda, some dish soap, and a bottle of vinegar.

I was 8 years old, and I’d never been so nervous.

My instructions were straightforward. Pour the baking soda, dish soap, and vinegar into the hole in the summit of the volcano, watch the concoction erupt, and explain to passers-by what was happening.

This all was standard operating procedure for any elementary school science fair. But as I waited for visitors to come by the table, fear and doubt started creeping into my mind.

What if I messed up the concoction? What if it didn’t erupt as planned? What if I failed to describe the experiment properly to passers-by?

The tension was palpable. I started to sweat.

But then, someone did come by the table. It was Go Time.

With shaking hands, I poured the ingredients into the volcano and watched it bubble back up like a witch’s caldron. My fears were thwarted; everything was going to plan.

Yet, instead of relief or elation, I felt profound wonder. I couldn’t believe how these simple ingredients had created something so magical.

Sure, I’d been told this would happen, and I’d been given the recipe to make it so. But experiencing the entire process firsthand blew me away.

Ever since that moment, I’ve thought critically about nearly every process I’ve encountered. What are the elements that go into it? And how can I tweak those to optimize the results?

This thought exercise has helped me make smarter decisions with my finances, my nutrition, and my career. It’s helped me be less wasteful and more deliberate.

Perhaps then, I shouldn’t have been so surprised when a job assessment told me I thought like an engineer. I might not be a tinkerer, but I certainly have the mentality of one.

I firmly believe that more of us should have this trait. That we should feel a sense of wonder not just in the finished product, but also in the myriad parts that comprise it.

That obsession with the underlying elements gives us more than a peek behind the curtain. It gives us agency.

We can exhibit understanding, empathy, and appreciation for the process. And we can remain better suited to switch things up if that process goes haywire.

In short, we can make the finished product more than the sum of its parts. But only if we sweat the small stuff and consider how everything comes together.

So, let’s spark that sense of wonder. Let’s remove assumptions and remain inquisitive. Let’s dive into the journey, not just the destination.

If we can do this, we all stand to benefit.