**Have assignment, will brb…
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Dedicated to anyone who thinks their job sucks (and don’t many of us have one-a those days)…
“Hey, my name is Jim, where did I go wrong
My life’s a bargain basement, all the good sh*t’s gone…
…Hey, man I’m alive I’m takin’ each day and night at a time
I’m feelin’ like a Monday but someday I’ll be Saturday night”
– Jon Bon Jovi (Rocker, tattoos and the occasional dubious lyrics (caveat!) aside, Bon Jovi remains proudly and happily married to high school sweetheart Dorothea Hurley, describing a successful marriage as “hard in any (line of) work, in any world.”)
In The Difference That Makes The Difference, a chapter of Thrive, author Jeremy Han describes how his most inspiring “student” at one of his workshops was the waitress serving the food during the 3-day workshop. Han writes, “…at the end of the third day, she approached me and said, ‘Sir, I am just a waitress… but whenever I was not serving, I paid close attention… I won’t remain a waitress all my life…”
Would you see yourself as the “poor” person who couldn’t afford to be in some swanky inspirational workshop, or would you see that as an opportunity to be a fly on the wall at a hot full-house event some paying customers cannot get into? AND you’re getting paid to be there.
Hold that thought….
This exchange from the Steve Jobs movie gets picked up pretty often, in part because of the indignation of Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, whom many have said is the “real” genius. Simple, right? Jobs stole Woz’ credit and limelight? Woz, his loyal old friend, tries to stand by him? Hang on (if this is accurate – and the real Steve Wozniak is on record as saying Seth Rogen’s portrayal of him in the movie is spot on – then whoever wrote the scene is brilliant) – see if you notice anything else interesting:
Woz: You can’t write code. You’re not an engineer. You’re not a designer… so how come 10 times in a day I read “Steve Jobs is a genius.” What do you do?
Jobs: I play the orchestra. And you’re a good musician…. you’re the best in your row.
(Now clock (sorry :D) the…. thing on Woz’s wrist that he’s raving about as The Next Big Thing. Would you as a potential watch buyer see that “Next Big Thing” through Woz’ eyes, or through Jobs’?)
Now a less-quoted excerpt:
Jobs: …(Woz), you get a Free Pass for life…
Woz: I get a “Free Pass for life.” From you. …You give out the passes. You. Give ’em to me.
An orchestra requires many different parts, therefore many different skills – which implies many different personalities. You need Wozes and Jobses on a strong team, in a strong society – each can see and create what the other could never. But the Wozes often feel (and fairly likely really are) shortchanged. The Jobses get more than a little encouragement to nurture the @sshole-ic part of their personalities because our reward system is perpetually flawed. Thing is, we all have a capacity to be selfish @ssholes, albeit our erm, “price point” differs – as Adam Grant put it, most people are “matchers”, a favour for a favour. But the price of letting just one “taker” in is that the givers burn out and suddenly everyone becomes wayyyy more selfish than before..
(Off on a tangent because Apple and Different Ways Of Seeing Things: Various news outlets have been on about President Trump’s latest “mistake” in calling current Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple”. May I just say – ALL that energy to dig up and respond to whether it was a “mistake,” whether there was a 0.2 second pause and whether POTUS was just “saving time” in the course of speaking, etc etc etc Apple CEO Tim Cook had the best reaction – he then happily changed his official Twitter to “Tim Apple.”)
Jay Leno playing himself on fictional-yet-carefully-researched-and-highly-acclaimed The West Wing puts it most eloquently to fictional press secretary C.J. Cregg, “You know what would be great? If you could get (POTUS) to ride his bike into a tree again.” Because y’know, “that’s my bread and butter” (as a talk show host)….) Wait wait wait can I just say how much I love standup and SNL and Fallon and Wayne Brady and – OK end of rave.
AND THEN LIFE WENT ON 😀
Lesser known fact: Jobs denied paternity of daughter Lisa for several years, even after a DNA test established him as her biological father. His argument for doing so appears relatively sound logically, as backed by statistics and probabilities about the chances these tests can be wrong.
In other words, it illustrates the extent to which Jobs Senior did not see Lisa as a 5 year old child (he finally acknowledged paternity when she was about 9. That is a substantial part of her entire primary school lifetime – Rockstar not that long ago turned 11, and HN is not yet 7.)
Lisa Jobs is classified as gifted, she attended Harvard, and this past September published Small Fry, a memoir of her childhood which includes emotional abuse, and which The New York Times is quoted, “In the fallen world of kiss-and-tell celebrity memoirs (a.k.a. reality tv and tell-all books), this may be the most beautiful, literary and devastating one ever written.“
I wonder how many people only saw that she was “gifted,” the daughter of a famous rich guy going to Harvard, wanting what she had, without seeing what she did not have, that many more kids her age did – a loving father. Because no one ever has everything. And we do ourselves a disservice chasing after the bits we can’t have, if it affects our ability to see what we do.
NOW back to that thought you were “holding” :D… That wonderfully fascinating world of “pricing,” mis-pricing, and opportunities and costs and the fact that what all of us see is coloured in some way or the other. Sometimes that’s bad. Sometimes however, that can give you strength like no other. (And well we could all use a bit more of it in our parenting).
One of my all-time favourite egs is the 1998 Italian movie Life is Beautiful, based on real-life Auschwitz survivor Rubino Romeo Salmoni. (Caveat, despite winning some 40 awards, 3 of ’em Oscars*, the movie still received criticism for incorporating humour in a Holocaust story.)
In the movie, fictional father and son Guido and Giosue are Jewish Italians who have been taken to an internment camp. To shield his son from the true horrors of the camp, Guido uses his substantial imagination (and gumption) to create a role-playing game:
What did you take away from that scene, that true heroes can often be skinny nerds with wonderful senses of humour? That real “strength” has less correlation to big muscles than we expected? How about the powerful influence how you see things as a parent and communicate them to your child will have on your child, who will grow up to be husband/wife, friend, parent, boss, team mate with their own powerful parts to play in our society. <STRESS><PRESSURE>
Let’s All Get Puppies! (Yo SPCA, y’all doing those pet keeping courses now right, can kids come? 🙂 )
*Life is Beautiful’s 3 Oscars… Roberto Benigni wins the much-coveted Best Actor role, beating out even Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan that year. So Benigni goes up there, and delivers just the best quip ever: “This is a terrible mistake. I used up all my English for the other awards.”
Like, OMG – Coveted Best Actor, not won by a non-English language movie actor/actress since Sophia Loren 40 years prior.
Y’know, I mentioned before that I’d been in some nasty mergers, that “bad” things “always” happen to “good” people in those mergers….. Quote marks relevant.
Every time you think someone is being deliberately awful to you, think also that this requires at least a teeny bit of effort and awareness. Which… You are happily wasting by not giving a sh*t about WHEEEEEEEEEEEE! (Umm, you’re using your own effort and awareness for something more productive like acquiring a new skill, right?)
Mergers are also an experience. They may take your portfolio for now, you may even lose your job in the short run, but no one can take away skills and ability you have gained – and better gained because of the added motivation your current situation gives you. That knowledge is yours to keep and put towards serving everyone else in your future who treats you better. (Sorry, I should’ve said, several posts ago, instead of leaving it at “that always happens to good people who don’t want to play dirty.” Yes it looks like you’re always at a disadvantage, but know what? You’re not really, you’re getting better at other things, acquiring new skills, while they’re expending their energy giving you a hard time and looking for a reaction…)
