The habit of doing more than is necessary can only be earned through practice. And the habit is priceless.
[Everything you want in your life bears practice, repetition, rehearsal, and respect. That also includes using the best tools you can, respecting them through care, and respecting the craftspeople who created them.]
Source: Seth’s Blog
Two quick notes that two different friends had great news recently. First a friend posted “BENIGN” to her latest torturous round of “Is it cancer?”. Yes! And then I read this:
I am so very grateful to all the love and support over the years! I am so happy to report that it has been more than 3 years since I was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma and my scans are all clear and so, I am cured!
[She’s an amazing woman, and I’m so thrilled to see them both smiling, and happy, and getting on with everything. Strength is forever.]
If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.:
“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” – Kurt Vonnegut
One of the best pieces of career advice that I have received is that you should never forget to have fun.
A lie that people like to tell themselves is that once “success” is reached (ie raising money, hiring new people, reaching important milestones etc), their life will get a lot easier, and only then can they start to have fun.
Unfortunately, “success” invariably raises the stakes and life actually gets harder and more complicated… not easier.
Instead of admitting this, we try to keep the lie alive by creating a new, more ambitious mirage of “success”. Months, years, decades and entire careers can fly by in this manner.
With all of this in mind, I am trying to take a deep breath, feel the love of my family and friends and say: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
[Right before the start of the Jewish New Year, this bared repeating in whole.]
Source: Dalton Caldwell
Santa Rosa, California with Andy Hampsten:
Andy Hampsten will point out pot-holes and cattle grids. He will ride next to you, with his bars a perfect hand span away from yours and never try to smash you. He will descend smoother and safer and faster then you can imagine. If some food pops out of your pocket and you don’t realize, he will stop and pick it up and ride back to you and quietly hand it back without a fuss. He will smile a lot.
Here are some things he won’t do. Complain, moan, talk about himself or drop famous names.
[“There’s a lot of riding to be done.” Amen. Lots to learn as well. Allez!]
Lance Armstrong | Ritte van Vlaanderen Bicycles:
Doping will undoubtedly make you a faster cyclist, no argument there. What doping won’t do though is make you win the Tour de France 7 times in a row. A higher hematocrit doesn’t instill in someone a maniacal drive to not just succeed but dominate. HGH doesn’t help you climb back from the edge of near certain death and come back to the sport you love to not just compete but win. Corticosteroids don’t lift you off the tarmac on Luz Ardiden and propel you to victory. All those things will make you faster, they don’t make you win. Cycling is not some magical sport where as soon as a red blood cell agitating needle touches your vein you’re vaulted into the ranks of legends. Cycling is like every other sport in existence, there are amateurs and professionals. The professionals are so much better than the amateurs that it is literally impossible for us to understand the scope of their competitive level. All of the pharmaceuticals in the world aren’t going to turn me into a professional bike racer let alone a multiple Tour champion. There is a reason there are so few dominant athletes across the sporting spectrum. They all share a insatiable ferocity that equates losing with failure. It is not enough to just win, they must destroy. Jordan, Federer, Woods, Schumacher and Merckx (who tested positive let’s remember) all athletes who relished the opportunity to exhibit the superiority of their talent. The list of sporting legends is short because becoming one is so damn impossible. Doping doesn’t make champions otherwise I would have been on the cover of Wheaties boxes years ago.
Lance not only did something which has never been done in cycling but he also was the reason so many of you probably even know what the sport is right now. And rather than fading into mild obscurity only to emerge selling half decent bikes with his name emblazoned across the down tube like so many other past champions he funneled his fame and efforts into a cause that affects nearly each and every one of us at some level. Does doping change the fact that he beat cancer? Does doping change the fact that he decided he wouldn’t die? Does cancer give a shit if he doped? And before you talk about how his inspiration was fueled by deception lets just remember that World War II was ended by an lifelong alcoholic and a rampant philanderer. They did know a thing or two about great quotes though.
So while it seems that so many of you are so happy with this decision and relieved that we can finally move forward I sit here (in a Hermes scarf and Dolce slippers of course) sad. Sad for the sport and sad for a great champion. Because this embarrassing USADA charade masked in “unbiased fairness” has done nothing to clean up cycling. It has sullied it further. It’s the frothing at the mouth, pitchfork wielding mob who upon finally burning down the subject of their ire are left standing around a smoldering pile of smoke and ashes that lies on the front steps of their own house. Nothing will change because of this and if so many of you are so happy to see this outcome then I suggest you quit watching professional cycling altogether. It’s not cleaner now than it was, the sport will always have cheats and the science will always be one step ahead of the piss cups. This is a black eye for cycling, let’s just hope there’s enough ice to stop the swelling.
[I’m rereading Laurence Gonzales’ incredible collection of books about the systems related to accidents and the mental mechanisms that apply to survival. Well worth (re)reading. He finds an eerie uniformity in the way people survive seemingly impossible circumstances. Decades and sometimes centuries apart, separated by culture, geography, race, language, and tradition, the most successful survivors–those who practice what he calls “deep survival”–go through the same patterns of thought and behavior, the same transformation and spiritual discovery, in the course of keeping themselves alive. Not only that but it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are surviving being lost in the wilderness or battling cancer, whether they’re struggling through divorce or facing a business catastrophe–the strategies remain the same. LG writes: “Survival should be thought of as a journey, a vision quest of the sort that Native Americans have had as a rite of passage for thousands of years. Once you’re past the precipitating event–you’re cast away at sea or told you have cancer–you have been enrolled in one of the oldest schools in history.” And so with any life altering event you trigger survival mechanisms. And as with all things extreme and not some do, some don’t. Everyone who does has something to teach. Possibly too, those who don’t Or at least their stories. Years ago, fascinated by the history and often tragic stories that take place in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (where I’ve enjoyed so much outdoors time) it was interesting to go back and look at some of these stories from Gonzales’ standpoint. And also from my own and what I’ve learned about surviving. So whether or not you care about what Lance did or didn’t do to win, he’s a survivor. And taking a look at his story as relates to the stuff in LG’s books makes that very clear. Don’t assume that this is the last chapter. He’s more than just a badass bike racer. And if in these recent times you’ve survived being bounced out of job and have landed on your feet… If you were in a car wreck that have left scars on you… If you made it away from an abusive spouse and are now in the arms of someone who loves you… you have something to teach and share. Please do so.]
I’m exhausted trying to keep up with everything. I want it all to be simple. Like when I was a kid and my father made all the decisions.
And a vote for Barack Obama means the same damned thing.
[And that’s the real problem. The system is so broken that neither candidate is meaningfully different. And the selection process? Incurably broken. And yet, it still matters if everyone gets involved.]
Source: Scripting News
Your audacious life goals are fabulous. We’re proud of you for having them. But it’s possible that those goals are designed to distract you from the thing that’s really frightening you–the shift in daily habits that would mean a re-invention of how you see yourself.
Organizations can always benefit from better habits. Every day. Do that first.
[I think this every time I set a goal. Because they all seem to fall into one category or the other. Set the habits in place that will allow you to accomplish the audacious goal and you will.]
Source: Seth’s Blog
I’m going for a run and I’ve got this to say, which I’ve said to many people in my life as I head out the door. If something happens to me when I’m riding, or doing anything else I love, then don’t feel bad! I was doing something I love! Now, if I have a heart attack waiting in line to pay my taxes, have a really good cry.
[Nice. Any results?]
Source: JenniBlog™ 2.0
Joe Posnanski:
I left my iPad on a plane the other day. The crazy thing about it — as if there needs to be an extra layer of crazy about leaving a hugely expensive and personal and professionally vital device on an airplane — was that I thought about it five minutes before I did it. Not after. BEFORE.
[So, ok, I haven’t (yet?) left my phone somewhere or iPad or whatever… but I do know that feeling and I try to pay attention to it. When I put down my keys and something whispers in my ear “You’ll not remember where you left these…” I try and not just chuckle, but pick up my keys and not put them there. Or tools while I’m working. Or whatever. And yet with all that, having just come home from a vacation, I couldn’t find my keys this morning nor several other things that are usually in one pocket of the bag that I usually carry. It would have been easier to take the bag along without removing anything… next time. BTW, Have you seen my keys?]
Source: Daring Fireball
A 40-Minute Crash Course In Design Thinking | Co.Design: business + innovation + design:
Inge Druckrey has been teaching design for more than 40 years. But what she has really been doing is teaching people to see. “You really learn to look,” she says in the opening lines of Inge Druckrey: Teaching to See, remarking on the benefits of an education in art and design. “And it pays off….Suddenly you begin to see wonderful things in your daily life that you never noticed.”
[Wonderful. Well worth the 40 minutes. And the creator of a favorite poster (the Beethoven poster for YSO]
turnings :: daniel berlinger 