Tearing Down Walls

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Last November marked the 20th anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Coincidentally, it was also the 20th anniversary of the first Hero’s Quest (aka Quest for Glory 1) release. One was a world-changing event, and one was “just a game”, but both had personal significance to me.

You see, I was in Germany when the Wall still stood. And I cried with joy when it came down.

There are walls around cities, and the walls we build around ourselves. We spend a lot of time hiding behind walls because we think they will protect us. But we forget that the walls that keep others out also trap us inside.

Taking a Chance

Back in 1971, I had a rare opportunity. My high school (Abington High near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) had an exchange student program affiliated with AFS. Each year one or two students from Abington went to school in a foreign country. I applied and became one of the finalists, but I felt I was outclassed by some of the other candidates.

Then a funny thing happened. Abington broke off its affiliation with AFS and decided to run their own program. Abington had a “sister school” in Berlin, Germany, so chose that for their exchange program. But a wall stood in the way, and that wall was the memory of the Holocaust. Every other top candidate was from a Jewish family. They didn’t trust that their children would be safe in Germany without a major program like AFS behind the exchange. One by one, the parents of each of the other finalists withdrew their children’s applications until I was the last one standing.

I felt as though I had “won by default”, but the selection committee assured me that I was fully qualified and would be a great representative of the school. By the way, my father was also Jewish, but believed that his children should have the chance to follow their dreams. He did not let fear get in the way. Many of the opportunities in my life have worked out that way – A door opens briefly, and you either step through it quickly or watch it shut in front of you. This time I went through the door.

A City Alone

Berlin in the 1970′s was a unique city. By the armistice that ended World War II, Germany was divided among the Soviet and other Allied forces. Berlin, the former capitol, was also divided, but it was in the middle of East Germany. All trade with the West had to pass through Soviet-controlled territory. By 1961, an estimated 3.5 million people took advantage of the open border in Berlin to leave Communist East Germany.

East Germany came up with a unique solution – They began to build barriers, and eventually the actual Wall – all around the Western sectors of Berlin. We’re talking a literal wall, several yards high, with a 100-yard “killing zone” on the East Berlin side. It was like the “Escape from New York” film – a major city completely separated from the rest of its own country and all of its allies.

King Solomon supposedly solved a dispute between two women, both of whom claimed to be the mother of a baby, by proposing that the baby be cut in half, with each woman getting half a baby. In the case of Berlin, the Allies literally did “cut it up”. Fortunately, cities are more resilient than babies, and Berlin survived the surgery. I think this is unprecedented in history. West Berlin became a unique place, cosmopolitan, thriving, yet always isolated and under the shadow of The Wall.

Which Side Are You On?

The building of the Berlin Wall was not the first act to divide the German people. One of my instructors at Kant Gymnasium had been a Lieutenant in the German army during World War II. One day he stopped to talk with me on a stairwell, and he said that he sincerely regretted having supported Hitler’s government, and that many of the soldiers and officers had felt the same way.

I asked him – naively, I suppose – why they hadn’t found some way to protest or resist. He told me that they had no choice. He knew that if he did not follow orders, and ensure that his men followed orders in turn, his family in Berlin would have been hurt or killed. He could see no way to break through the wall of rules and laws that constrained him.

It is never easy to break from the norm, be different, or work to bring about change in a hostile society. Most people, most of the time, go along with the rules we are given. We live our lives according to a pattern and rarely stop to examine whether we could do better by breaking down the walls of habit.
We also create our own mental walls. Once we make up our minds, we have a lot of inertia towards continuing to do what we have been doing. We like to be “right”, and the easiest way to do that is to ignore anything that might force us to change our opinions. It’s ok to be wrong sometimes. We learn far more from our mistakes than when we get things right the first time. Minds are like parachutes; they only function when open.

Walls Between People

The destruction of the Berlin Wall was a life and world changing event. It had stood for almost 30 years, dividing friend from friend and family from family. When I visited Berlin in the early 1970′s, the Wall seemed a permanent, unalterable fact of nature. As an American, I could cross over with some slight risk, but to a Berliner, East and West Berlin were two different worlds. One was Democratic, one Communist; one Capitalist and commercial, the other Socialist and relatively impoverished. Germans could not move freely back and forth, and there seemed little common ground beyond the language.

November 1989 changed all that. The Wall began to come down, piece by piece. Families were reunited. Friends old and new found they had much more in common than they could have realized. Less than one year later, the two Germanies became one. And now it’s hard to imagine they were ever separated.

We build walls all the time. Whether the construction materials are political affiliations, gender, social or religious differences, educational background, or standards of hygiene, we make quick decisions about other people and then base our relationships on those first assumptions. Those instincts are often “right”, in that our subconscious minds use a lot of hidden details to make choices. But they aren’t flexible. When evidence comes in that contradicts our initial assumptions, we are usually poor at adapting and adjusting our beliefs. And that builds walls.

If you want to have more friends, or to be more effective in life, you need to learn to tear down some of those walls, or at least find a way to climb them. Learn to role-play, empathize, and understand what drives the people around you. Don’t assume you know what they’re thinking; start a real dialogue and ask them. You can find things in common with almost anyone if you open yourself up and work at it. And if there’s nothing in common, that just means you have an opportunity to learn and perhaps to teach.

Take Down the Walls

We can all benefit from the lessons of the Berlin Wall. Our lives are made poorer by the separation we create between ourselves and others. Our rote day-to-day patterns keep us from seeing the richness that life has to offer. Our “party line” political decisions lock us into an “Us vs. Them” mentality that benefits none of us.

The walls that keep others out also lock us in. Make some new friends, try some new things, and tear down the walls that separate you from other people. You will find a new sense of freedom and joy beyond those walls.

The Fall of the Wall
Wikipedia Creative Commons

Tags: Berlin Wall, Corey Cole, Life Advice
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The Power of Uncertainty

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

“Gentlemen,” Sloan said, “I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here… Then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement.” – Alfred P. Sloan, former Chairman of General Motors

If there’s one thing about which I’m absolutely certain, it’s that it doesn’t pay to be too certain. If I knew all the answers before taking on a task, it probably wouldn’t be a very interesting one. Early in my programming career, I made the decision that I would only stay with a job as long as I was learning new things. Any time I knew everything, it was time to move on.

Twisty Passages, All Different

“You can never step into the same river, for new waters are always flowing past you.” – Heraclitus of Ephesus

Life has a lot of repetition. Sometimes it feels as though you’re dropping a red vase in a “maze of twisty passages, all alike”, exploring the maze for several hours, and ending up back at the red vase. At first, it seems as though no progress has been made at all.

But there is progress. Before returning to that spot, you probably also dropped a few other objects in different sections of the maze. You may be revisiting a location, but the state of the maze – like that of Heraclitus’s river – has changed. You have more information and can make more refined decisions.

It’s All Right to Be Wrong

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard

The key to making a tough choice is being willing to change your mind. If you reach a dead end, back up and try another path. This isn’t true only in adventure games; real life has many opportunities to rethink decisions and make better choices. Some choices – taking a particular job or having a baby, for example – of course commit you for a time. And that’s a good thing – You really need to give either of those time to do well; then decide whether your original decision was the right one.

Remember, there are no bad decisions. If it’s a meaningful choice, it’s also a difficult one. And that means that there are reasons for making a particular choice and reasons for doing something else. Don’t beat yourself up over small “mistakes”; learn from them instead. And when it’s time to make a similar decision, you’ll have more information and the chance to make a better choice.

Embrace Complexity

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

To me, oversimplification of a complex issue is a capital mistake… and one we see all the time in news reporting, political analysis, and the corporate boardroom. It’s very understandable – When confronted with a really complex issue, we feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable. Simplifying the decision – usually by focusing on a single aspect of it – makes us feel more in control.

Politicians are often tarred with labels such as “fence-straddler” or “flip-flopper.” We want our representatives to have definite opinions and stick with them. But that isn’t a good reflection of reality. The issues debated in Congress, Parliament, and other political institutions don’t have nice simple answers. That’s because the simple questions get handled all the time by individual workers. Only the hard ones come up for voting.

Currently, the United States suffers from an excess of certainty. There is a line drawn in the sand between the Republican and Democratic representatives, and very few are willing to cross over it. Instead of carefully considering each issue, representatives blindly vote on party lines. Issues such as the bank bail-out, universal health insurance, and others are not at all straightforward. And yet, on many of them, all of the Democrats vote one way, and all of the Republicans against them. That degree of consensus tells me that our representatives are not thinking about the issues. They’re voting the way they’re told to vote. There is no individual judgment, and to me, that means there is no real intelligence being applied to our laws.

That’s an oversimplification in its own right, of course. I’m sure our representatives and their staffs do a tremendous amount of work writing bills and amending them to reflect their constituencies. That’s where the intelligence comes into the process. But the final decision is a vote, and most of the time, that vote doesn’t seem to reflect anything more than a rubber stamp of political party positions.

Analysis Paralysis

We can suffer from too much information. Our brains are designed for simple survival decisions – “If I sleep on the ground, predators may kill me, so I’d better either sleep in the trees or make myself a strong shelter.” We can cope with decisions like these. But modern life is much more complicated. We can spend hours – or hundreds of hours – researching questions on the Web and other resources. It’s very easy to get so much information on a subject that a meaningful decision is too hard to make.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this conflict in several of his New Yorker Magazine articles reprinted in his book, “What the Dog Saw.” For example, he talks about intelligence failures in attacks such as 9/11/2001, the 1973 Syrian and Egyptian attacks on Israel, and the 1998 terrorist attack on the US embassy in Nairobi. Each time, there were – at least in hindsight – clear indications that an attack was imminent.

The problem is that there is just too much information. Yes, there were leads suggesting each of these attacks. But in the case of the 1998 attack, for example, “the FBI’s counterterrorism division had sixty-eight thousand outstanding and unassigned leads dating back to 1995.” It isn’t in the least bit surprising that one letter – from an informant who was considered not credible – was ignored. There was just too much information, much of it contradictory, and most of it useless.

Trust Your Instincts

How do we make intelligent decisions when we have too much information, or too little? “How We Decide,” by Jonah Lehrer, studies this question. While people can’t make millions of calculations per second as does a computer, we make surprisingly accurate decisions all the time. That’s because we have a built-in memory and feedback mechanism that recognizes patterns and gives us positive feedback when the patterns look “right”.

A chess grandmaster can glance at the board and immediately pick out four or five moves that have the most potential. Then he’ll work through those possibilities and choose the move that seems most promising. This sort of decision is based on knowledge and experience, but the immediate decision is made by “feel”.

Are your palms sweating as you contemplate a decision? Ears ringing? Arms shaking? Your body and mind are trying to give you feedback that – based on your previous experience – something is wrong. Pay attention to those instincts and you’ll make much better decisions than if you try to exhaustively analyze every question. Then learn from the results so your instincts will improve each time.

The Simple Answer Is…

… that there are no simple answers. We live in a complex world full of difficult and complicated decisions. The best we can do is to try to make reasonable choices, pay attention to our instincts, and learn from our inevitable mistakes.

Life isn’t just an adventure game; you have a lot more freedom of choice. Sometimes you need to break out of the maze and make your own twisty passages. And sometimes you seem to end up right back where you started. But you never step in the same river twice; the experience from your previous decisions helps you to make better ones as you go along. In the end, it all comes down to this simple guide:

• 1. Make a decision that feels right.
• 2. Live with it, but also learn from it.
• 3. Rinse and repeat.

Don’t be afraid of uncertainty. Being uncertain just means you have meaningful choices. And that’s what makes the game (of life) fun… even when you don’t know what your next move should be.

Tags: Life Advice, Uncertainty
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What Price Success?

Friday, December 18th, 2009

We admire and envy Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Barack Obama, and other successful people. But success does not come by itself. Even for those born into the right families at the right time, it takes years of dedication and hard work to become successful. And it often entails sacrifices in relationships and other activities. What does success mean to you? Are you willing to pay the price to succeed?

Outliers

I just finished reading Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is a columnist for the New Yorker who writes fascinating, contorted stories that seem to amble here and there before finally converging to his point. In one article he talks about paleontology, Microsoft, and near-simultaneous inventions and discoveries before settling in to describe a “think tank” company that patents new technology ideas.

In Outliers, Gladwell brings together a number of research studies in fields ranging from elementary education to hockey players, corporate takeover law, and others. One conclusion is that there is no such thing as a “self-made man”. Everyone who is successful gets there by having a team, a support network, and a set of fortuitous circumstances that help elevate them.

I initially found that a little depressing. For example, almost all successful hockey players are born early in the year. That could suggest that people like me (with a November birthday) might as well give up (at athletics, at least). As it was, my parents pushed to get me into school early; I certainly would have had a different school experience if I had started a year later. And yes, I sucked at sports.

But that isn’t really Gladwell’s main point. He believes that the circumstances that turn those early-birth-date players into successes can be duplicated and applied to the training of others. And we can use that to turn his research into an action plan for success.

Workers of the World… Succeed

One of Gladwell’s messages is that people don’t just “find themselves at the top”. They work their way up there, and it takes a lot of work. One study shows that to become an expert in any field, you have to put in at least 10,000 hours of practice and preparation. That means it takes at least ten years of intense study and work just to learn your craft.

Gladwell contrasts the workaholic attitude of Chinese peasant rice farmers with the more laid-back view of Russian and European serfs. Rice is a crop that requires constant attention and work, so it can’t be grown efficiently by slave labor. A Chinese proverb says, “No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.” How many of us can even imagine that degree of dedication to our work? It doesn’t exactly fit with the popular “something for nothing” approach to life.

Do you have to kill yourself to be successful? Or is there another way? I can think of at least three.

Hours in an Eye-Blink

Practice breeds perfection. And Passion encourages Practice. Find an activity that engrosses you and makes you forget about time, and you will have found the profession at which you can become an expert. I took up computer programming in high school because it was fascinating. I spent many after-school hours playing with the computer and getting it to follow my commands. A few years later, I began to make programming my career.

There has been a lot of press in recent years about work-life balance, especially in the video game industry. Many game companies require mandatory overtime to meet their hectic delivery schedules. The problem is that you can’t mandate passion or dedication. People who are really immersed in their professions work hard, and work long hours, because they don’t think of it as overwork.

When I worked at “regular” programming jobs, most programmers put in 45 or 50 hours a week just because they hated to leave in the middle of a task. Video game development intensifies that – 60 hour weeks are the norm during “crunch phases”. There is so much to do, and almost everything you do breaks new ground, so programmers don’t even think about going home after 8 hours. They want to get the job done, and they love to play with the code until it’s perfect.

Work-life balance? You bet! Your work will become your life. Don’t use this as an excuse for bad relationships though. You can invest a lot of passion in your work and still be a decent human being when you’re at home. But you’ll probably spend a lot of time talking about your creative and work activities, so it helps to have partners and friends who share your passion.

Work Smarter, Not Longer

The 10,000 hour rule teaches you how to become an expert. That doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life working those 60 hour weeks. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, children who wanted to learn a craft started as apprentices or indentured servants. Over the course of 7-10 years, they became expert in the craft and the best eventually became Journeymen and then Masters. A Master was known for his skill and artistry, not for working 10 and 12 hour days.

If you were managing an important and challenging project, which employee would you rather have? You can have someone who works by rote for you ten hours a day and turns out a mostly-complete job as you hit the deadline. Or you can have someone who spends a lot of her day thinking and researching, then 3 or 4 hours doing exactly what is needed to finish the task perfectly. I know who I’d choose! But surprisingly many managers prefer the “hard worker” to the expert.

In the game industry – and I think, in life – everything really worthwhile takes experimentation and the willingness to try different approaches. The approaches that don’t work have to be thrown away. If you’re lucky, they might suggest ideas that can be used for another project down the line. But if you aren’t willing to try – and often fail – you won’t accomplish anything extraordinary.

Work smarter, not harder. A few hours of effort with proper preparation is worth a lot more than a marathon for which you didn’t practice. In your career, those first years of preparation in which you work your tail off may give you the opportunity to be successful with a reasonable work schedule later.

Shared Passion is Passion Multiplied

Outliers teaches us that nobody succeeds alone. Spend your time with people who share your passion. Work with people you respect and admire, and try to adopt their best practices. Join a great team or try to create one. You will get a lot farther that way than by hiding in a corner and trying to do everything yourself.

My most productive periods have been when I worked closely with a peer – someone who could look over my shoulder when I got stuck, or with whom I could discuss ideas. Two heads are better than one when it comes to creative approaches to solving problems. And that helps you work smarter.

Lori and I have always had a collaborative relationship. That isn’t always easy – another word for collaboration is “arguing”. But each of us pushes the other to try new things and to do them as well as we can. Many of the puzzles and story elements in our games started with a “half-baked idea” that we kicked back and forth until it really worked.

Each week, when I start writing this blog, I seem to get to 400 words and stall. Lori pushes me to get the rest done. Then she usually makes me reread what I wrote and make it better. Even though I do almost all of the writing, these blogs would be much lower quality without the intervention.

Two or three people working together will accomplish much more than the same people working on their own. Individual work adds up; collaboration multiplies.

Going out of your way to try new experiences and meet interesting people can also be a way to find your passion. If your work doesn’t immerse and fascinate you, maybe you just haven’t tried enough kinds of work yet. Some very successful people started out trying out a little of everything. Go on – Give something new a try!

Success = Worth

I don’t consider anyone truly “successful” if they don’t love and care about their life and their work. You need to know that your contributions really matter to stay passionate about your work.

If you don’t feel that passion, maybe you need to reinvent yourself. Take on new tasks. Try new types of work. Volunteer your services for a few weeks at a time. If you have a creative idea and don’t see a clear way to capitalize on it, work on it for fun, then give it away. Worth is not measured by how much money you make, but by what you create and the value you add through your work and your ideas.

In the long run, it doesn’t really matter whether anyone else calls you an “expert”. All that matters is that you can look back and say, “I’ve accomplished a lot with my life.” Find small ways to make the world – and the lives of people around you – a little better. There is no greater success than that in life or in work.

Tags: Book Review, Life Advice, Outliers
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You Decide

Friday, December 4th, 2009

”Did you ever have to make up your mind?” – The Lovin’ Spoonful

What is the Meaning of Life?

Through the ages, philosophers (and everyone else) have pondered the ultimate question of life, the Universe, and everything. According to Douglas Adams, the answer is “42”. Lew Brown wrote in 1931 that, “Life is just a bowl of cherries.” Erma Bombeck came back with, “Then what am I doing in the pits?” Pity, that.

Maybe they’re all asking the wrong question. Try this variation: “How can I give meaning to my life?” That’s a question you can answer, especially if you think of Life as a Game. In a game, you only have a few controls, and your contribution to the game comes from the decisions you make and how you use the controls. Life is the same; it’s all about the decisions you make.

The Way to Give Meaning to Your Life is by setting goals and making decisions that support your goals. Such choices are the only thing over which we have any control. We don’t decide our parents, our birthplace, or the time in which we live. But we are constantly confronted by choices, and how we handle each one has a profound impact on the rest of our lives. Indirectly, the ripple effects of each decision affect many other people in sometimes obvious, but often subtle ways.

Choice. Life is all about choosing.

For Better or For Worse, You Must Choose

If the Meaning of Life is about making meaningful choices, then what happens when you refuse to choose? Whether you call it procrastination or aversion to risk, failing to choose is making a choice. And it’s rarely a good one.

Now it’s ok to take your time and make sure your decisions are informed. After all, every decision matters. Just don’t let yourself get paralyzed to the point where you are afraid to decide at all. Every time you have a choice and fail to make it, you lose out on some of the “game play” of your life. You turn an interactive experience into a movie. And where’s the fun in that?

I’m writing this partially as therapy, because I have a long history of procrastination. And yet I know that most of the best moments I’ve had in life have been when I took a stand and made a decision. I took big risks in dropping a project to go to Sierra, in starting my own company to develop Shannara, and in many other life decisions. Not all of my choices have been wise, but choosing has almost always been better than waiting on the sidelines.

The Bridge to Success

Rose Meltzer, a five-time World Champion at bridge, said, “The thing about bridge is that you lose more than you win. You have to pick up the pieces and go on. I keep trying every day.” What a great attitude in gaming and in life!

How liberating is it to know that even the best decision makers often get it wrong… or get it right and fail anyway to the roll of the dice? The key is to make your choice and accept that you made it. As we learn from playing games, you can often recover from a bad decision. Maybe I shouldn’t even use the word “bad”; very few life choices really have clear-cut right or wrong answers. All you can do is make a reasonable choice each time. Each one gently nudges your life in a new direction, and the sum of all your choices adds up to the life you live.

Last week, a friend pointed out that the way to win a war is to have a clear objective and only do things that move you towards that objective. The catch phrase for Vietnam was, “Win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people.” Every action we took that caused us to lose respect from the Vietnamese worked against that goal, and we took a lot of such actions.

So what’s your objective in life? Are you going through life without a battle plan? If it’s just to “stay alive,” I can tell you the odds are stacked against you. Not many people have managed to live forever so far. So maybe you should make some plans that you can accomplish in a normal lifetime. That might be to contribute to the world in getting us into space, or creating worthwhile entertainment, or in any of a number of other ways. It could be to enjoy yourself, to find time to spend with friends and family, or to explore the world. But make yourself a goal – or several goals – and use them to help you make choices that further your goals.

The Game of Life

Think about your favorite games and why you like them. It probably isn’t the great graphics or the license, or even the wonderful text. It’s the choices you make and how they affect the story. When Lori and I designed each of the Quest for Glory games, we often asked, “What meaningful choices can we give the player? What problems do our characters have that the player might be able to help them solve?” These questions became the heart of the game play and story lines.

All great games have decision-making at their heart. In poker, do you raise or fold? In bridge, do you take the finesse or try to find a squeeze or endplay? In billiards, do you try to sink the target ball or snooker your opponent by hiding the cue ball behind other balls? Without choices like these, a game stops being a game and turns into just an activity.

If making choices is essential to making games fun, then how much more important must it be for life? Our personal story lines and our “life play” are directed by the choices we make.

A Winning Team

Life isn’t a solitaire game. We play it with other people, and our choice of partners and teammates makes a big difference in our life experience… and theirs. Certainly a good part of my life has been shaped by whom I married and by friends I met along the way.

How we choose to act, work, and play with others has a huge impact on how our lives play out. Work on developing empathy – knowing how to deal with people based on their needs as much as on your own. If you want to play on a winning team, learn how to convince others that they should play with you. Consider their needs and desires and find ways to help people while they are helping you. Pick a win-win scenario any time you can, and you will soon have many friends and teammates working with you to achieve your goals.

Another important factor is self-confidence. That comes from knowing what you want and being able to visualize how to enroll others into helping you accomplish your goals. If you have trouble being assertive, try role-playing in front of a mirror. Remind yourself that you are a capable, competent person. Practice your communication and negotiation skills.

This isn’t about arrogance. You aren’t demanding special treatment just because you want it. It’s entitlement by competence. You’re entitled because you are doing the work and earning the respect and assistance of others. An attitude of “quiet competence” will be recognized by the people you work with. They will respect it and want to work with you.

It’s Your Choice

If you want to be a success, and to create meaning in your life, recognize that you have the power to do amazing things. All it takes is commitment, willingness to treat other people’s goals as almost as important as your own, and a lot of work to build up your practical knowledge and communication skills. Treat life as an exciting, engrossing game and choose the decisions that will help you win at it.

Find your dream and follow it!

The next time someone tries to confound you by asking, “What is the meaning of life?” you can look them straight in the eye and say, “I know the meaning of my life. Maybe it’s time for you look for your own.” We all have as much meaning as we allow ourselves to have.

Tags: Decisions, Life Advice, Meaning of Life
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Life After Death

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

”No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!”
– Stan Rogers

Death. ALCOR claims notwithstanding, it comes to us all. And that means it comes in time to everyone we love. We don’t know what – if anything – happens “beyond the veil”, but we do know the pain of watching a friend, relative, or favorite pet weaken, suffer, and finally leave us behind.

That can be a very helpless feeling. We may feel guilty and think that maybe we could have done more to prevent the situation. Maybe we should have spent more time with our friends and family while they were still active and healthy. At the same time, we know that they are responsible for their own lives. We can’t force someone to exercise more or eat better if that isn’t what they want to do. All we can change is what we do with our own lives.

If life is a game, it’s the Kobayashi Maru scenario; there is no way to win. But how you play it makes all the difference.

All We Can Do…

It is our character that determines how we handle a friend’s illness or death. We have a lot of choices. We can hide from death, afraid of our own mortality or just avoiding the work and pain of trying to help them when they don’t even know we’re there. We can try to take control of their lives, treating a sick – and perhaps mentally “not all there” – adult as a helpless child. We can become analytical and mechanical, shutting down our feelings while we make sure we handle each problem that arises step by step. We can be so loving and caring that we put aside other things in our life to make sure that we are always available. That might entail sacrifices – time away from work, from our children, from our friends and favorite activities.

All of these approaches are “coping strategies” in stressful and difficult situations. None of them is “right”, and none is “wrong”. It is easy to feel guilty that we are not saints and paragons of virtue, but there is no single right way to deal with trauma. Is it truly saintly to ignore our commitments and responsibilities to others for the sake of spending time with – or mourning for – one person? Are we really paragons when we give everything to, and do everything for, someone who might make a better and faster recovery if he had to do things for himself?

Guilt is a funny emotion. It can be a useful thing in small amounts, a reminder that there are things we need to do and priorities we should assign. But, taken too far, guilt is one of the most destructive emotions. It can cloud our judgment and dull our minds so that we fail to accomplish things we need to do. And that can lead to even more guilt. It’s terribly inefficient, as well as harmful to our own health and well-being.

At the same time, feeling guilty about feeling guilty isn’t the answer either. It’s better to accept the guilt, recognize that it has a purpose, and move on. Let your guilt remind you that you care and have feelings, but don’t let it control you. You are in charge of your own life, and if you give that up, how will you be useful to your friend, yourself, or anyone else? Accept how you feel and what you are, then go on living your life.

What Do You Do Next?

But how do you do that? If life is a game, maybe we can take some lessons from gaming. Dungeons & Dragons game masters would often set up a scenario like this: “Two Orcs come around the corner, see you, and start yelling. What do you do next?” The idea was to wake up the players and get them to act quickly.

So we had to laugh when we found a t-shirt that simply said, “You’re dead. What do you do next?” That later became the theme of a game in which the players had to help one of their team escape from the Underworld.

But it’s also a pretty relevant question for life. What do you do when someone close to you has died? How do you continue when your own life seems to be in rags? Maybe you lost your job and are having no luck finding another. Maybe you’ve lost a love that you thought would be with you forever. How do you pick up the pieces and find a way to go on?

It might take a conscious act of re-invention. It’s definitely worth some self-examination. I don’t think there is a single “right way” to turn your life around, but there are many resources for strategies that might work for you. Skim a few “coping” and self-help books and articles. If you see something you like, study the rest of the book and decide which parts you can apply to your own life. A classic book on job hunting, ”What Color Is Your Parachute”, by Richard N. Bolles, has a lot of good advice on Knowing Thyself.

The Game of Life

Is life really a game? Maybe a better way to think of it is, “Life is a role-playing campaign.” You are living a long series of “games” and interlocking stories. There are a lot of ways you can approach a game. You can play it for fun and laughs. Or you can see each game as a challenge, and rise to overcome the challenge and excel at the game.

Has your life become dull and predictable? That can be ok. Lots of people enjoy simple, repetitive games like solitaire and Farmville. But when you play, ask yourself, “Is this what I want? Or is it time to find some new challenges?” Even if you’re pretty satisfied with your life, I encourage you to try some variations. Set a few goals for yourself; try some new things. Just remember that they’re all just games. If you try something new and fail, that’s fine. ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. – Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Have you been thrust into games you didn’t sign up for? Did that make you resentful? I suggest you mentally “step back” and see yourself “in the game”. Instead of being angry, accept that you are a player, and play to win! So what if you’re doing something you didn’t choose to do? Treat it as a game, and play the game well. If it still isn’t fun, think about ways you can choose your own game the next time.

For now, live the life you have. Don’t waste energy resenting that it isn’t some other way. Winning poker players learn to play the cards they’re dealt; they don’t get angry because they don’t win every pot. They find ways to survive the bad beats and maximize their gain on the good ones.

Live and Let Die

That strategy applies all the more when you are playing a game you can’t win. And, in the long run, that’s life. We can’t prevent death; all we can do is hold it off for a while. But life isn’t just one game; it’s a series of games. That one called “life and death” is fixed, but the other ones aren’t. Play each game to win – and to have fun – and when you finally stare Death in the face, you’ll be able to look into his eyes and know that you have won far more than you lost.

How do you “win” when your best friend is dying or her life is falling apart? Remind yourself that it’s just one more game, one more session in the campaign. As with any game, you can try to maximize your win or minimize your loss. Try to spend a little more time with them. Before and after they’re gone, remember the good times you’ve shared and remind them. Be with them. If this game has to be lost, don’t forget the many victories that came before.

Then you have to move on. Take inspiration from the one you’ve lost and find a way to turn that inspiration into new goals, new ideas, new ways to play the games in your own life. Death is a transition, and might signal time for a transition in how you live your life. Take up a new hobby or start a new project. Finish something you’ve been putting off for a long time. Reincarnate your passion!

Death. It comes to us all. But it doesn’t have to be an ending. Treat death as just one more roll of the dice, one more turn of the wheel, and it loses its sting. Even after death or disaster, “Your heart must go on.” There is life after death for the survivors, and it is worth living well.

In memoriam – Byron M. Cole, 1923-2009, father, friend, inventor, mentor.

Our Flying Aardvark Ranch Studio Gallery has art from the recent “Dia de los Muertos” we attended. It is a celebration of life and a memorial for those loved ones who have died.

Tags: choices, Death, Life Advice
Posted in Life Advice | 1 Comment »

“The Show Must Go On”

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

The audience waits impatiently for the curtains to open. The lead singer may have come down with laryngitis, one of the dancers has broken a leg, and the drummer is a victim of spontaneous combustion. But somehow the show must go on.

Last week saw the Final of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent competition. Having – like many people – become fascinated with the show after hearing Susan Boyle sing “Dream a Dream”, I devoured all of the semifinal and final episodes on YouTube. I came away with a new appreciation of the varieties of talent and some thoughts about performing under extreme pressure.

“In My Life”

Music has always been a big part of my life. My father had done some work for Heathkit and part of his payment was a very fancy stereo amplifier. He built it into a hi-fi music system with speakers in three rooms on the ground floor of our house in Pennsylvania. We had a wide selection of 33′s, 45′s, and even some 78′s with classical and pop music. My older brother and sister loved the Beatles and Herman’s Hermits, so I sang along with the radio and records. I even occasionally got to tag along when they went to a concert.

I had no formal music training in grade school except for a couple of short-lived classes in trombone and guitar. My first real exposure to music theory was my 8th grade music class. I remember that the teacher would sometimes have us arrange our chairs in a circle and listen to music that ranged from classical to the electronic music of Edgar Varèse. I also sang in a chorus even though my sight-reading ability was close to non-existent.

That was the beginning and end of my music career, as I flunked the audition to the high school choir – My voice was changing at the time and kept cracking. They also expected a certain minimum of music training – “Sing America the Beautiful. What key would you like?” “Uh, I don’t know; in what key do you usually do it?” That incident shook my confidence, and for years I avoided singing anything in public. The show went on without me.

“All the World’s a Stage”

That changed when my brother visited me in Santa Barbara for the Old Time Fiddler’s Competition. Barry had shared his folksong notebook with me, and encouraged me to enter the old-time singing contest. I chose “Two Brothers”, a Child Ballad, and Barry accompanied me on fiddle. I went up on the stage in front of hundreds of old-time music fans and somehow managed to focus on the performance instead of my stage fright. For those few minutes, I became the song.

When the dust had settled, I placed second in the beginning singer category. Not much of an accomplishment, perhaps, but to me it was like the Cowardly Lion’s medal of courage in The Wizard of Oz. I had been acknowledged for the first time in my life as a real singer, and even had the certificate to prove it. That award was a sort of magical armor I could don when someone criticized my singing – I knew that some people appreciated my voice.

Stepping onto a stage in front of a live audience is enormously stressful. Even seasoned performers admit to getting stage fright before every performance. Each finds a way to cope with the pressure, because they know that the show must go on. They find a way to draw energy from the audience and to involve them in the performance instead of fearing them.

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Sometimes the pressure can be too much. One of the talented contenders on this year’s Britain’s Got Talent finals was Hollie Steel, but she almost didn’t get a chance to compete there. During her semi-final performance, she made a mistake, couldn’t get back on track, and broke down in tears. Surprisingly, Simon Cowell – the “tough judge” on the show – convinced the producers to let Hollie come back later on the show to try again. The second time around, she gave a nearly flawless performance, and the judges and audience were impressed by her ability to bounce back from disaster. Did I mention that Hollie is 10 years old?

I helped out at a coffeehouse for a while in my teens. One regular performer was folk/blues musician Norm Deaver. Norm gave me this tip on performing – “If you make a mistake or forget the words of a song, just keep going. The audience will probably never know the difference, but they will spot it instantly if you stop or remark on your error.” Even when a judge “buzzes you”, keep going. You won’t win any performance points by giving up or becoming angry.

The show must go on. “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Sometimes life sucks, and everything seems to go wrong, but you win no points with the jury by complaining or being angry about it. You just have to find a way to play the instruments you have on stage with you. Wishing you had a Stradivarius isn’t going to improve your performance on a student violin; imagining that you are playing a Strad just might. Practicing and studying a lot before you go on stage almost certainly will help.

“Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”

Somewhere I have a “Book of Seconds”. It’s all about the second person to run a 4-minute mile, the second man on the moon, and so on. The point was that we all love a winner, and nobody remembers who came in second. Nike had the ad campaign that, “Second place is the first loser.”

Lori and I think that attitude sucks, is destructive, and doesn’t match up with the things that are important in life. I love to come in first at bridge, but I don’t measure my own performance that way. The question I always ask myself is, “Did I play my best today? Did I put everything I can into the game?” If the answer is “No,” then I think about what I need to work on. Sometimes I play my best and come in 2nd or 3rd because someone did even better.

But you know what? Second place is damn good. So is third. You can have a very successful and fulfilling life without ever becoming Number One in anything. Very few professional athletes are #1 all the time. A .300 batting average is considered excellent, even spectacular – That’s more than 2 outs for every hit. A professional bowler or poker player who wins one tournament in twenty is rightly considered to have a great career.

Susan Boyle did not end up winning this year’s “Britain’s Got Talent.” She gave this breathtaking performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” in the Final, but came in second to Diversity, a dance group. News reports talked about how Diversity had “beaten Susan Boyle into second place.”

Well, Diversity was amazing, and they deservedly won, but Ms. Boyle most assuredly did not lose. She has a recording contract with Simon Cowell’s record company, will be performing on the West End, and is getting the opportunity to sing with her idol, Elaine Paige. The media world has a much better idea of how to present and promote singers than dancers, and Susan Boyle’s future is assured… as far as she decides to take it. She will sing, make records, and people will buy them.

In third place was 39-year-old music teacher Julian Smith with this inspiring performance on saxophone. And you know what? Mr. Smith is not the “second loser”. He’s the third winner! After wowing millions with his beautiful saxophone performances, he will certainly get a chance to fulfill his dreams of signing a record contract and getting many more chances to perform his music in front of live audiences.

Life is exactly the same way. We put on a lot of “performances” every day, from going to work or school to paying bills to going out with friends. Many – perhaps most – people drift through these activities and their lives. Exceptional people treat everything they do as a performance. They think and plan ahead, and when the moments of action arrive, they go all-out to do their best at whatever they are doing – work, leisure, and relationships.

I don’t mean to say that you have to become stressed about upcoming events. But you will have more fun if you prepare for them. Going to Disneyland? Make sure you have your tickets and hotel reservation, pack a day or two in advance so you don’t forget the sunscreen, and get to the airport on time. You’ll find you have much less stress in your life because you know you’re prepared. Performing a solo piano recital at Carnegie Hall? Same thing, isn’t it?

Different Strokes

Diversity picked the right time to peak, putting on this wonderful, unique, and energetic Final performance. It came down to the quality of the final performances and the question of how the British people wanted to be represented in front of the Queen. Susan Boyle would have sung wonderfully, but we are used to hearing wonderful singers on the radio or our iPods all the time.

Diversity’s name was perfect – They are a diverse troupe of street dancers ranging in age from 12 to 25 and of multiple ethnic backgrounds. I think the viewers chose really well in that their appearance in front of the Queen will be a message, that Great Britain is made up of many diverse ethnic groups, and that when they work together, amazing things can happen.

By the way, there was another terrific street dance group in the BGT finals. Flawless lived up to their name in the semi-final with this routine, and I think would have had a very good chance of winning the entire competition if the vote had taken place then. Lori and I certainly would have voted for them.

However, their performance in the Final wasn’t quite as tight. If Diversity promoted the message that, “We’re all part of what makes Britain Great,” the Flawless final seemed to say, “We’re really good, but we’re different from you.” Diversity definitely projected the better message to portray before the Queen.

“It All Comes Down to You”

In the end, everything comes down to the Final. The best performers that day won the show. But everyone else won just by making it that far. They all had a wonderful opportunity to showcase their talents to millions of people all around the world. Their performances are recorded and will be seen for a long time on YouTube and other Internet sites. And many of them will go on to have successful show business careers.

We each have some pretty amazing opportunities too. We get to try out in the various auditions of life every day. When we find the magic, and bring our hearts and souls (not to mention lots and lots of practice) into the performance, sometimes we get to move on to the next stage. Every once in a while, there’s a Final, where we really get to show off our stuff. And just as on “Britain’s Got Talent,” Life’s Finals don’t come down to a single winner and a bunch of losers. Just to be there and to do the best we can on that day – Those brief moments in the sun should be joyous… for you and for your “audience”.

The show will go on!

Tags: Life Advice, Music
Posted in Life Advice | 2 Comments »

You Bet Your Life – Lessons from Poker Players

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

“You got to know when to hold ‘em,
Know when to fold ‘em.
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run.”
– Don Schlitz

To the uninitiated, Poker seems like a game of chance. You are dealt a set of cards – some good, some bad. You have to figure out how best to play them. That’s a pretty good metaphor for life.

In poker, as in life, luck comes in streaks. Sometimes you get five winning hands in a row, and other times you don’t get anything. Luck tends to balance out in the end. If poker was all about luck, then there would be no real winners. Everyone would break even. And yet there are people who consistently walk away from the poker table with a nice win or a small loss. At the end of the year, they come out way ahead of the game. It’s all about knowing the odds and following through on them. Once you learn to pick the winners, you might do well at a site such as partybets. You want to make wise choices that will pay off in the long run.

These professional players are subject to the same turns and runs of good and bad luck as the rest of us. Sometimes they go “card dead”. Sometimes they make an absolutely mathematically correct decision, but it doesn’t work. They may lose those confrontations, but somehow manage to come out ahead time and again. The winning players have a few simple rules, and it turns out they work pretty well in the game of life too.

Don’t Run Out of Chips

A famous poker saying is, “Poker isn’t a game of cards. It’s a game of money management resolved with cards.” Pro poker players know that their chips are their life blood, so they try to risk few chips when their hand is marginal and bet more when they’re pretty sure they’re winning. And they hate to go all-in unless they know they’re going to win. Where you might see an amateur player pushing all his chips into the pot hand after hand, the professionals prefer to play smaller pots where they can increase their stacks a few chips at a time.

If you run out of chips, you’re out of the tournament. If you use up the last of your health points, you’re out of this life. Those aren’t winning strategies. Look at Russian Roulette as an example. You have a pretty good 5 out of 6 chance of winning each time you spin the chamber and pull the trigger. But the payoff is tiny compared to the cost of your 1/6 chance of knocking yourself out of the game. Poker pros try to minimize their “all or nothing” decisions.

Of course, not every all-in decision is really “life or death”. A poker player who busts out of a tournament can always enter another one. If you go for broke at work and get fired, there are other jobs out there. As long as you keep a bankroll or find a way to raise a new one, you can get back in the game.

Chris Ferguson, the 2000 World Series of Poker champion, did an experiment on his Full Tilt Poker site a couple of years ago. Starting with literally zero investment, he went up to $10,000 in 18 months. He played in freeroll tournaments until he won a few dollars, then slowly built up that stake. It took him 9 months to get up to $100, and another 9 months to reach $10,000, never risking more than 5% of his bankroll (once he got up to $100) in a single game. His point was that careful cash management trumps luck.

Raising is Better than Calling

Poker pros would much rather raise than call someone else’s raise. In fact, when Chris won that World Championship, he had one firm rule. He never called a raise before the flop. He either raised or folded.

If your opponent raises and you call, you have to show a better hand to win. If you raise, you have two ways to win. If your opponent folds, you immediately win a small pot with no further risk. If he calls, you can still show down a better hand to win. Good poker players don’t mind if they bet with a great hand and everyone folds. Those are chips they didn’t have to fight to win.

In life, passively accepting what happens to you is a form of “calling”. You may be able to live this way, but it won’t be very exciting, and you’ll miss out on most of the really big opportunities. My son and his friends used to say, “You have to go big to win big.” Try raising your stakes occasionally. Ask for a raise at work. Challenge yourself to do something you have never done before. Make the first move, and you’ll be surprised how often you get an uncontested win. Those little wins can add up to a lot of extra “life chips” to use when things don’t go your way.

Make Positive Expected Value Choices

Poker pros use the terms EV, +EV, and -EV a lot. “EV” stands for “Expected Value”, and it’s the heart of using luck to your advantage. To calculate EV, you multiply your chance of winning by the amount you expect to win with a particular action, multiply your chance of losing by the amount you’re risking, and subtract the second number from the first. If the result is positive, that’s +EV and means it’s a reasonable play. If the result is negative, it’s a -EV action. Go minus too often and you’ll find yourself out of chips.

When I worked with Chris Ferguson down in L.A., I once asked him a question about a poker situation. A player raised all-in, and I wondered whether I should call or fold with my particular hand.

To my surprise, instead of giving me a “Yes” or “No” answer, he first asked me how many chips my opponent and I had at the start of the hand. Then he went to the white board and listed all the possible results, and my expected value from each one.

My actual hand turned out to be the least important factor in the calculation. The important part was the amount of money involved in the play. Chris pointed out that you can’t really tell what cards your opponent has, but you always know the size of the pot and your chip stacks.

Every decision you make has an Expected Value. Take the time to find the choices that maximize your potential wins or minimize your potential losses. You’ll find they add up to a nicely profitable life, whether you measure your Value in dollars, friends, health, or fun.

Let’s say you are dating and trying to figure out whether to “go steady” with one person or “play the field”. Estimate how much time and money you would spend each way; those are your costs. Then estimate the benefits of each choice – A possible long-term loving relationship versus the fun and excitement of always being with someone new. Subtract the costs from the benefits and you will have an EV for each choice. Go with the one that is more “profitable” in terms of a happier life.

But make sure you re-think your choices as you get more information – Maybe you’ll meet someone really special who changes the whole equation. Or maybe your One True Love turns out to be a frog; that too calls for a new EV calculation. Poker pros re-evaluate their decisions at every round of betting.

Don’t Let the Bad Beats Get You Down

Bad poker players like to tell “bad beat” stories to anyone who will listen. A bad beat in poker is when you have a much higher chance of winning, but the dealer turns over a miracle card that lets your opponent win. Bad players think that they have been somehow “wronged” when they lose a hand they “should have won”.

In the 1982 World Series of Poker, Jack Strauss pushed all of his chips into the middle, and lost the hand. But as he got up to leave, he found he actually had one last chip under a cocktail napkin. With that single $500 chip, he stayed alive, rebuilt his stack, and eventually won the tournament. He refused to give up, and to this day, poker players say, “All you need is a chip and a chair.”

Life is full of bad beats. It’s how you react to them that shows your quality. Complaining is usually a -EV action – It just makes you less happy, drives your friends away, and rarely accomplishes anything useful. Take your good luck and bad luck in stride. Learn what you can from your successes and failures. Then apply those lessons to improve your EV the next time you have a decision to make.

Live a +EV Life

Everything that happens in life is like the turn of a card at the poker table. It might bring you fortune, or it might bring you pain. Some gambles are thrust upon you, but you still have a lot of influence on the outcomes. Winning gamblers strive to keep the pot small on their close hands, and build it up when they expect to win. You can do that too – Bet big when you have positive EV, and pull back on the stakes when the risk is high. Make sure you survive the bad beats, so that you have time to prosper from the good ones. Place your bets wisely, stay in the game, and you will minimize the impact of luck on your life.

And do you know the really nice thing about real life? You only get judged on your successes, especially the big ones. Nobody cares about the hundred small – or even not so small – failures that may have come first. When your potential loss is small, almost every situation has the potential to be +EV. When you take positive action, it’s amazing how many barriers will just fold before your expression of strength.

Life is filled with small EV decisions that can add up to big wins or losses. You can hide from them and not accomplish much, or you can make the little investments of time or money that have a chance for big payoffs. That’s your best chance to really have an impact on the world around you. It’s also a lot more exciting than giving up.

Open yourself to the chances life offers, and live a positive expectation life. Play like the pros and make the odds work for you.

Tags: Chris Ferguson, Life Advice, Poker
Posted in Life Advice | 3 Comments »

Hero: Origins

Friday, May 15th, 2009

One of the oldest arguments in Sociology is “Nature vs. Nurture”. Does our genetic map determine who and what we will become? Are our destinies instead decided by our environment and early training? Or is there yet a third possibility – That we continue to grow and change throughout our lives?

Lori and I don’t get out to the movies very often, but we managed to see two this week – Star Trek and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. There was a common thread to the two films – Both looked at future Heroes before they came into their power. Corey is also currently reading one of Gordon R. Dickson’s “Dorsai” series, “Young Bleys,” which is also about the origin of an extraordinary person.

While James T. Kirk, Bleys, and James Howlett (aka Logan aka Wolverine) were in no sense “ordinary” as children, they all had to develop before they became true Superheroes. Along the way, they faced a number of “character challenges”, where they made life choices that eventually led them to become greater than they began.

Naturally!

Nature is clearly a powerful factor in both Wolverine’s and Kirk’s lives. Kirk’s father was a Starfleet officer who briefly becomes Captain of a Starship and sacrifices himself to save his crew. Kirk is born with the superior intelligence, charisma, and physical qualities that characterize a leader. He also appears to inherit his father’s willingness to take risks and make sacrifices despite never having met him. James T. Kirk would certainly be a Warrior in the School for Heroes.

Wolverine discovers his hand-spikes and learns that his half-brother has claws. They are different from those around them from the beginning, and their struggles to survive push them even farther from the common run of humanity. But Logan is not the same as his brother. Wolverine has an unbreakable sense of honor and rightness. He refuses to kill innocent people or to compromise his ethical principles. Although Wolverine appears on the surface to be a Warrior – he certainly has warlike tendencies – an argument could be made for placing him in the Paladin class. He certainly has the integrity and independent spirit to be a Paladin, and he has no desire to be a leader of others.

It would be easy for these heroes to “give up” – Kirk as a fatherless, reckless child constantly in trouble with the law; Wolverine as an outcast, hunted by anyone who knows of his “difference”. But instead, they fight, and struggle, and survive. And in the course of that, they learn. Kirk somehow manages to score highly on academic exams. Sure, he’s a smart kid, but so are most of our students and readers. What set him apart from the “merely above-average” crowd was that he loved learning as much as he loved danger and excitement. He never gave up, never accepted that he had any limits, and took the time and effort to excel in everything he tried. Kirk didn’t have superpowers, “just” an indomitable spirit and the drive to prove to himself that he could do anything. Kirk is the ultimate Warrior – A man of direct action and a self-assured leader whom others want to follow.

In “Young Bleys”, by Gordon R. Dickson, Bleys Ahrens also has a rich genetic background – He is really, really smart. But his mental power is just a tool. He really takes off and begins to come into his own when he decides that he must know everything there is to learn in several crucial areas of study. He also decides that he needs physical strength and martial arts training so that his body will support what his mind can do. Over the course of many years of intensive work and study, he hones his natural abilities into those of a superman. Bleys Ahrens is clearly a Wizard – He analyzes everything, then acts on the knowledge. His domination over others is through manipulation, rather than the result of true leadership.

Bleys believes that he knows – better than anyone else – what the future of humanity should be. He devotes his life to bringing about the future he foresees, even though he knows that few will thank him for changing their lives. Bleys sees himself as a Paladin, but he does not have the Paladin’s wisdom and understanding of the Right Path. His pursuit of “the greater good of humanity” is driven by arrogance and ego rather than true caring. Young Bleys has the potential to become a super-hero or a super-villain, but neither path is preordained for him. A Wizard pursuing the path of a Paladin is a powerful force for good or evil.

Predestination or Chaos?

I think that both theories – Nature and Nurture – are missing something. Their proponents seem caught up in the idea of predestination – Whatever happens to us early in our lives takes charge over everything else. We don’t buy that. We think it gives people a convenient excuse for failing to take charge of their own lives. After all, everything important has already been decided, so what difference does it make what training or effort you take later in life?

Well, it does make a difference. People change careers. Businessmen fail, come back to fail again, then go on to succeed in their next venture. People pull themselves out of the ghetto, or the gutter, and go on to have useful and happy lives. Athletes have a heartbreaking loss, then come back with the performance of their lives. Current “King of Bowling” Wes Malott defended his crown today by making a comeback after missing an easy spare. He said, “Ironically, I had talked with a father with three kids before the show and I told them you had to put bad shots behind you and focus on making the most of your next one. That’s what I did. I could have given up, but I bounced back.”

A long-shot, “Mine That Bird”, just won the Kentucky Derby. Four race previews listed him 20th, 20th, 16th, and 17th of the 20 horses. One reporter commented that he was, “Too slow to be a factor.” The betting made him a 50:1 underdog. He seemed to fulfill that prediction in the early running, riding well behind the pack. But the Derby isn’t a sprint, and isn’t decided in the early running. Jockey Calvin Borel believed in his mount and focused on its strength, not its weakness. He used Mine That Bird’s smaller size to maneuver between the other horses and skim the rail to make his way through the pack. The result – The second-biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it. The way to buck the odds is to keep trying. Figure out what went wrong, but treat it as a learning experience, not a life-defining failure. Go back and try again until you get it right – or the random factors align in your favor – then keep on going. Your life is not formed at birth, and it’s not defined in childhood. Those just give you your starting position. So what if your critics give you no chance to succeed? So what if they put you on the outside gate? If you can’t run with the pack, maybe that’s a signal that you should ride in front of them. It just might be your chance to be a Leader.

Do You Want to Be a Hero?

Ask yourself this: How do you want to live the rest of your life? Do you want to continue to be an above-average person with o.k. results? Does that satisfy you? Does it thrill you?

Or will you be a Captain Kirk? A Wolverine? Someone extraordinary, a Hero? If you want to be more than ordinary, it will take more-than-ordinary commitment, effort, and willingness to fight the odds. It will be a lifelong journey, but one you can take a few steps at a time.

Better get started!

Tags: Heroism, Life Advice, Star Trek, Wolverine
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SSECCUS – A “How Not to” Guide

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Sseccus. That’s “SUCCESS” spelled backwards, the way most of us seem to approach it. Some people are naturally talented and seem to know instinctively just how not to succeed. Others practice Sseccus on a daily basis. But just in case you’re one of those rare and special individuals who hasn’t yet learned how to fail, here’s your “How Not to Succeed” guide.

• 1. Don’t prepare – Spontaneity is much more honest.
• 2. Play games at least 5 hours a day – They teach valuable life lessons.
• 3. Sleep is for the weak. And hamburgers and fries are a cost-effective diet.
• 4. Dazzle them with your brilliance.
• 5. Never put off until tomorrow something you can postpone to next month.
• 6. One size fits all. Customization is a waste of time.
• 7. Dot every “i”, cross every “t”. They’ll never really understand it otherwise.
• 8. It’s not your fault, so make sure they know who’s to blame.

Now these aren’t capital crimes. Every one of the above “strategies” can have some value, taken in moderation. But they’re a quick path to failure when overdone. Let’s see how you can turn a grand opportunity into another missed chance.

Don’t Prepare

I recently had a job interview for a project and position about which I was really excited. I didn’t get the job. A few things went wrong, but I think #1 was lack of preparation. I knew the position was mainly about programming using C++, a language I hadn’t touched in about 5 years. And I had a week or two to prepare before flying out for the interview. So why didn’t I pick up a C++ book and review the syntax and features I hadn’t much used? Mostly because I didn’t think of doing so. But there’s no excuse for that.

When you are going into an interview or negotiation, starting a job, or going on to a new project, think about what you will need to do it well. Do a little research and legwork. Find out about the company and the people you’ll be meeting. Refresh yourself on the technical environment. Or you can just be spontaneous – also known as “unprepared”.

Play Games

Obviously Lori and I like games. We play them, create them, and talk about them… a lot. Games have a lot of good things going for them – They teach you hand-eye coordination, problem-solving, storytelling, and often details about the game setting. MMO’s teach you how to get along and work towards a common goal with other people. Player-vs.-player games build your reflexes and give you a competitive edge. You can also learn discipline and patience.

The thing is, it doesn’t take 20, 30, 40 hours a week to learn these things. A good game can be just as fun – probably more – in a few hours of play as in an endless repetition. World of Warcraft “daily quests” are a great example of something that takes a lot of time out of your life without providing any outside-of-the-game value.

Twenty or thirty years ago, all the talk was about how our children’s minds were being turned into gelatin by endless hours of TV watching. These days, a lot of that TV has been replaced by game play. To some degree, there’s value in that – Studies have shown that senior citizens who play bridge are mentally sharper, more alert, and healthier than ones who don’t. But taken to an extreme, those are priceless hours of your life – or mine – that we will never get back. Eh, so what? Let’s play. We can get the work done some other time.

Sleep is for the Weak

I’m writing this at midnight, as usual. I probably have another hour to go on it and I’m getting up at 8:30. But that’s ok; 7 hours sleep is almost as good as 8. Six will probably do in a pinch, or 5. This really comes from a few things – procrastination, habits (a sleep schedule that doesn’t match up with reality), and failing to plan ahead. But the bottom line is, we make mistakes when we don’t sleep enough. We are less alert, more careless, and our concentration and hand-eye coordination are affected by tiredness.

Your health (and mine) matters. You need to eat a balanced diet, keep your weight within a reasonable range, get regular exercise, and so on. It’s easy to skimp on some or all of these when you’re busy, or have other things you want to be doing. And then it multiplies – When you don’t exercise, it gets more difficult and painful, so you find excuses to do even less. When you don’t sleep enough, you lose the benefit of good judgment that tells you that you need to go to bed.

You can develop bad or good habits equally easily. If you have the bad ones, you’re going to have to work three times as hard to break them. Better get started now; it isn’t going to get any easier.

As for those burgers and fries – Well, I lived on the McDonald’s QLT (Quarter Pounder with Lettuce and Tomato) and slices of pizza for a Summer. Somehow I survived the experience. They seem economical, but you won’t be doing your body any favors. Mix it up. Eat some vegetables. Keep your portions small – A few bites taste the same as a Mega Meal. You’ll feel better, weigh less, and have better energy and focus. Ration your sugar intake while you’re at it.

Dazzle them with your brilliance.

Listening is much overrated. You’re so wonderful, and it’s very important that you share that wonderfulness with your friends and coworkers. What would they do without your fascinating tales (also known as “endless, pointless stories”)? If someone else brings up a subject, it’s essential that you either share your anecdotes and wisdom about it or change the topic to a far more interesting one. If you’re bored – and you will be if you have to listen to someone else pontificate – clearly everyone else will be just as bored. It’s your job to entertain them.

You won’t learn anything new this way, but that’s ok. I’m sure you already know everything important already. And everyone else surely wants to hear it from you. Repetition is an effective way of reinforcing knowledge, so surely it must be a good thing for you to tell the same anecdotes to the same people over and over.

Of course, there’s the tiny little danger that the other person wants her say just as much as you do. Or that she might get just a tiny bit annoyed at your telling her something she already knows. Or – perish the thought! – that slightest little possibility that maybe the person on the other side of the table actually knows something relevant and important. Naw, we know from watching actors and sports stars that everyone is automatically an expert on everything.

Never put off Something you can Postpone

Scientific American had a great article last December called, Procrastinating Again? How to Kick the Habit. They said that “everyone procrastinates occasionally, but 15-20% of adults routinely put off activities that would be better accomplished right away.” I’m one of those; perhaps you are too.

There are a lot of reasons why we delay doing things. Some of them are completely reasonable – We need more information, or we currently have higher priorities. Others are silly… to everyone except the person who is delaying. Maybe if you don’t pay that bill, it will go away. Maybe someone else will do your work for you. Maybe a creative muse will descend upon you and make your work much more brilliant if you just give it time.

Procrastination is often caused by anxiety, the fear you will do a poor job. The problem is, that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The longer you put off a task, the less time you will have for it, the more stressed you will have become about it, and the greater the chance you will botch it. If you really don’t think you’re prepared to do something well, don’t give in to the fear; fix the reasons for it. That might involve doing additional research, getting assistance from an expert, or breaking the task down into more manageable sub-tasks. But don’t simply avoid the problem. Schedule a time when you will do it, and plan what you have to do first so that you can do the task well.

If you just can’t decide on what to do, stop for a minute and think about it. Write down your choices; otherwise it’s easy to get your thoughts in a loop where you can’t settle on one thing. Look down the list and consider the pro’s and con’s of each possible decision – It might help to write them down as well. Then pick one. If there’s no obvious answer, flip a coin or roll some dice. If the choices are that close, it probably doesn’t really matter which one you pick. In any case, once you’ve made the decision, stop worrying about it. The choice is made; go with it!

One Size Fits All

This has to do with any situation where you’re selling something. Applying for a job or asking for a raise is “selling yourself”. Anyway, we’re used to mass production. Everyone watches the same shows, listens to the same songs, and drives cars that look pretty much alike. We’re told it’s more efficient to make everything the same.

If you want to be just as successful as everyone else, you can be the same too. I mentioned last week how Susan Boyle managed to make herself stand out from 50,000 competitors and millions of people who didn’t even try to compete. Sameness is a losing proposition.

I’ve applied to a lot of jobs in the past for which I didn’t even get a response. Some of them seemed like ones tailor made for my background and skills, but I couldn’t get a foot in the door. For the recent interview, I did things a little differently. Knowing quite a bit about the company and its philosophy (from doing Internet research), I customized my resume and application letter specifically for them. I didn’t tell any lies, but I emphasized skills that they would consider important and cut out some details that wouldn’t interest them. Instead of trying to dazzle them with my amazing “jack of all trades” career, I focused on how I would benefit their company.

I got a response and I got an interview. My letter and resume stood out from the thousands they receive because it told them what they needed to know and showed them that I cared about the company and that job.

This is really all about listening. If someone comes to you and says, “I need X,” you aren’t going to accomplish much by saying, “No, you don’t. You need Y.” Especially if your main reason is that you happen to have extra Y and not much X. Sure, you can discuss whether X is really right for them, but you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. You’ll do a lot better by either finding someone who wants and needs Y, or by doing the work it takes to find a way to offer X. Look, listen, and adapt.

Dot Every “I”, Cross Every “T”

“When all is said, nothing’s done.”

Maybe this is just a variation on dazzling and failing to listen. But certain of us have a habit of trying to say too much. I once marketed a health food supplement. I had a neighbor totally sold on it, but I hadn’t finished my pitch. So I kept going as I watched his eyes glaze over. I made the sale, but would have done a lot better to stop at “enough”.

Maybe, just maybe, the person you’re talking to isn’t totally stupid. They may already know a lot of what you’re trying to tell them. Or they might not, but when they get to the point where they need to know more, maybe they’ll come back to you and ask specific questions on the parts they actually care about.

I have lots of pompous friends and relatives who like to explain every detail. I’m often one of them. But most of us aren’t full-time teachers. Even when we are, students learn a lot better if they ask the questions. Say enough, and no more.

Another form of this is “losing the forest for the trees.”  If you spend too much time on details, you may lose sight of your goal.  On programming projects, you’re often better off using an off-the-shelf library function – even if it isn’t exactly what you want – rather than writing your own function for a common task.  That way you can concentrate on the parts that really matter.

Know Who to Blame

Ever failed at anything? Ever had a project canceled? It probably wasn’t your fault. I’m sure you did everything possible to make it succeed, but those idiots around you blew it. It’s very important you share that information. If you’re applying for a job, be sure to tell the manager how stupid your previous manager was. Surely they won’t think you’ll be saying the same things about them to your next prospective employer.

You may have been through some pretty awful situations, but if you really stop and look back at them, most of them really aren’t such a big deal. People make mistakes; that doesn’t make them stupid, incompetent or evil. You’ve probably made a few yourself. Telling other people about all the dumb things others have done just makes you look vindictive. Enough such examples, and pretty soon they’ll wonder whether there are really that many stupid people in the world, or if it isn’t just simpler to assume you’ve been the cause of all those failures.

I might have the opposite problem. One time when I applied for unemployment payments, I said that I had been laid off because I hadn’t handled the work well. The interviewer said that in his 20 years of working for the unemployment office, I was the first person to admit that I might have lost my job because of my own fault rather than someone else’s. Most people don’t like to admit to themselves, let alone to others, that they could be responsible for their own problems.

But you know what? It’s a lot easier to look in the mirror, say, “I blew that one,” and move on. Be honest with yourself, figure out what you did wrong, and take action to avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Even if other people did screw up, so what? Think about what you can do in the future to help the project succeed even when people make mistakes. I can guarantee this – Mistakes have been made on every significant task ever done. A lot of those tasks succeeded anyway, and those were the ones on which enough smart things were done to override the mistakes.

Learn from your mistakes, but don’t let them control your life. Just work on the things you need to do so that you will make different – and hopefully smaller – mistakes the next time.

Going from SSECCUS to SUCCESS

There are other ways to fail, but success really comes down to just three things: Prepare, Communicate, and Perform. And the biggest part of communication is listening. If you find yourself having trouble accomplishing the things you want to get done, there are reasons. You may be afraid that, if you do too well, others will expect too much of you. You might not be doing the work and preparation needed to succeed. Or maybe you just aren’t listening.

But you know what? Success is fun. It’s exciting and fulfilling. And the more of it you have, the more you take on and accomplish, the better it gets. And that means that high expectations are really just exciting opportunities. That’s something worth striving for… and did I mention fun?

Tags: Humor, Life Advice
Posted in Life Advice | 2 Comments »

Heroes Have Talent

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Moving the World

The Internet is abuzz with the tale of Susan Boyle, 47-year-old singing sensation who took the “Britain’s Got Talent” TV show by storm a couple of weeks ago. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, Miss Boyle appeared on stage as an unemployed, overweight, middle-aged woman with frizzy hair. Then she sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables so beautifully that the audience and judges were enthralled.

The story here isn’t about a talent show, or that a singer gave a great performance. It’s about reaching for the stars, building on the unique talent we each have, and breaking through barriers. It’s also about the prejudices and stereotypes we hold, and getting beyond them to recognize value in others of all types. In this music video world, we tend to assume that great singers are also young and physically beautiful. What a strange idea!

You see, Miss Boyle is not the first out-of-type singer to be successful, and far from the oldest. If she had started her music career at 20, nobody would be surprised if she were still singing professionally at 50. And while appearance matters in pop music, it’s less important in other branches. Luciano Pavarotti did not exactly look like Orlando Bloom, but he sang before a lot of packed houses.

The judges on Britain’s Got Talent showed astonishment at Susan Boyle’s appearance, but they didn’t have to go back far to find a similar case. The overall 2007 winner of the competition was Paul Potts, a round-faced, ordinary-looking cell phone salesman. He sang an operatic solo with such clarity and depth that his performance made even opera haters sit up and listen. Mr. Potts has since released a CD that sold over 2 million copies. Clearly the voice matters much more than appearance… of course, the publicity value of winning a televised competition was also essential to his success.

Overnight Wonders?

So who are these incredible phenomena, Susan Boyle and Paul Potts? Did they spring forth, like Venus from the ocean, to suddenly have the voices of angels?

Of course not! Each of them worked for years at their craft and polished their innate talents until they were ready to perform their songs in front of millions. According to Wikipedia, “Potts first sang opera in 1999 in a karaoke competition, dressed as Luciano Pavarotti. That same year, he appeared in the Michael Barrymore talent show My Kind of Music. Although he did not take first place, he won £8,000 — enough to help pay for vocal lessons in Italy, during which he was selected to perform in front of singers Pavarotti and Katia Ricciarelli.”

Miss Boyle was also musically active 10 years ago – “In 1999, Boyle used “all her savings” to pay for a professionally cut demo tape, which she later sent to record companies, radio talent competitions, local and national TV and which has now been released on the Internet. It consisted of “Cry Me a River” and her version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song”.” Susan performed in benefit concerts, but remained unnoticed.

These talented singers did not come out of nowhere and suddenly learn to sing. They honed their talents over many years, then were catapulted into the international spotlight by their opportunities on the talent show and the viral nature of Internet “word of web”.

Most importantly, they persisted in the face of tremendous challenges. Susan’s father died about 15 years ago and she was the caregiver for her mother until her mother’s death in 2007. Paul went through a series of illnesses and accidents that prevented him from singing for several years. Ordinary people might have given up in these circumstances, but these are Heroes. They picked themselves up, stood up before the risk of failure and humiliation, and kept trying.

Inspiration

The media has made much of the initial scorn directed towards Susan Boyle – The message, “You’re unattractive, so we won’t like you.” But that isn’t how I see it. I watch the instant change from skepticism to adoration in the Talent audience, and I don’t see bad, prejudiced, judgmental people. I see people who needed inspiration and found it. I see an immediate recognition and acceptance of beauty that made physical appearances irrelevant. I see how one Hero can make a difference in the lives of thousands, then millions, then hundreds of millions.

I see this because I went to a Mensa party in San Diego, and the people there just had to share Susan Boyle’s performance for those of us who do normally live in caves. Lori learned about the performance from a blog on “five inspirational videos”. In case we’d missed it, my sister-in-law sent me a link she’d gotten from her sister.

One act, hundreds of millions of people touched. By the way, Susan’s choice of material was inspired. The judges on Britain’s Got Talent ask each contestant, “What’s your dream?” Performing “I Dreamed a Dream” is certainly a response to that! I’ve listened to her performance 5 or 6 times now, and each time I am moved and energized by it.

Heroes Got Have Talent

“We aren’t all Susan Boyles and Paul Pottses,” you may be thinking. They’re clearly extraordinary individuals. But this isn’t a story about where they are now; it’s about how they became what they are. Because they didn’t start out as stars either. They began as individuals who loved singing and kept doing it, and getting training, and trying over and over to become noticed, until finally they did.

We hear about the odds, that 50,000 people auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent, and only one person wins each year. Well, those aren’t the real odds. There are about 61 million people in the United Kingdom. That means that less than 1 out of 1000 even tried to get on the show. The others self-selected themselves out of the running. You don’t win by failing to try. You succeed by pushing and learning and working and taking risks. You succeed by going out there and doing things you believe in.

We all have that power to inspire. All we have to do is to take stock of our own skills and talents, work to nurture and strengthen them, then dare to stand up and show the world what we have. It might start with helping one person with a small project, or singing in a local chorus, or even writing a blog article. At first only a few people will notice, but if you inspire them, they will remember it. Maybe they’ll find a way to pass on the story, or maybe it will help them to create inspiration of their own. But the wave will spread and it will be good.

That is why we started The School for Heroes. Everyone here has some talent, some skill. The Band of Bards is specifically about performance, but all Heroes perform when the time comes. Paladins “perform” by helping people, but also literally stand before an audience at times. Warriors lead, and that doesn’t just mean walking in front. It also means using words to convince others to do what needs to be done. Wizards teach; that’s a performance too.

But most importantly, we dream, and we work to fulfill those dreams. The School is designed to help each of us understand who we are, what we believe in, and how to make our dreams become reality.

Dream the Dream

It doesn’t have to stop there. The Ars Heroica is currently seen by a few hundred Hero students and other visitors. But each one of us has the power to multiply that audience. When you see an article that moves you the way Susan Boyle and Paul Potts moved their listeners, pass it on. Post a link to it in response to another blog. Mention it on your Facebook page. Work with other students to create a video illustrating the ideas and post it to YouTube. Email a few friends and link them the article that might start to change their lives. You have so much more power than you realize!

So what is your dream? What is the one thing that you want to accomplish more than anything else? Find your passion, live your dream, and make it real. It won’t be easy. You’ll have to do a lot of hard work. You may face ridicule and rejection. But believe in your dream and maybe, some day, you can inspire people as much as Paul Potts and Susan Boyle.

Tags: Heroism, Life Advice
Posted in Featured, Life Advice | 2 Comments »