Self expression isn’t always easy.  Maybe that’s why I admire those who openly exhibit an apparently unshakable confidence to be themselves. 

It’s easy not to realize that behind outwardly confident people there are probably many encounters with ignorant people than most people are even aware. 

It seems that in life, it’s almost impossible to escape criticism entirely.  The schoolyard “Sticks and Stones” saying and the online advice of “Don’t feed the trolls” is only a small part of the story.

Sometimes scarier that just the verbal assault of a bully or an online troll is the scarier form of this which is extremist ideologues, a.k.a. people that are on a mission to push their own agenda as being the only correct agenda and will use any means available to acheive their outcomes.

Granted, it is not easy for some people to be tolerant of points-of-view that are diametrically opposed to their own, especially when it comes to political, religious, economic ideologies, or any ideology for that matter.

Let me clarify that I’m not saying that all ideologues are bullies, because there is a huge difference between an ideologue who is mature and tolerant and one who is an irrational extremist.

Conventional wisdom is to not even bother fighting the sorts of battles that you’ll never win. It sucks to hear that sometimes the bad guys win, especially when things escalate beyond just name-calling.

Optimists may point out that losing the battle isn’t the same as losing the war.  But to those lost in the battle, unfortunately the outcome of the war does become rather irrelevant. 

Everyone has a right to choose where their loyalties lie. There will be people on both sides of almost every argument who will never give up their loyalties. 

And, different ideologues have different ideas about what they are fighting for.  Some simply seek support for their ideas, while others seek apologies, and others want you to join or leave their group, to just name a few.  But there are also those that seek more extreme outcomes as well.

There are tribes on all sides of every argument.  It’s great to have a tribe on your side.  But that’s where I see is an ugly side of tribes, too. It’s scary to know that the enemy has a tribe on his side, too.

New technologies allow for the easy expression of many different points of view, many that may not align with our own. 

People will believe who and what they want to believe.  Yet I feel that it is still important to get our unique stories out.  Giving both or all sides of the story allows people to decide for themselves who or what they want to believe, especially those people who want or need to understand others sides of an argument, too. 

Isn’t that how we work to encourage tolerance, e.g., how advocacy against bullying and acceptance is growing through movements like the “It Gets Better Project”?

It is unfortunate how it is often easier to find the negative one-sided stories than to find the  more balanced or first-hand accounts of a story.

But there are stories to be told about all sides of situations.  And, there are people that want to hear the other side of the story, too.

Maybe it’s easier to tell a story than to fight a fight?  Maybe story telling is how we fight some fights.  Maybe we can only know what value our stories provide by telling them? Maybe the recent movie, “The Help”, is one example of this? 

What other stories still need telling?  That’s something that I’m going to give some more thought to. What about you?

We all have bad days at work.  When we do, it is not uncommon to entertain the thought of:  “do I stay, or do I go?” 

Recently I came across strong arguments to support either option. 

From “don’t quit your job…never be without an income stream”, to “appreciate what you have until you have a plan to go after something better,” to the enticing:  “Oh, go for it, don’t live a life with regrets.”  

All three bits of advice make perfect sense.  So, whose advice do you take?  How do you choose among: patience; temptation; inspiration; motivation; opportunity costs; impulsiveness; and risk-taking?

Should we also be factoring in things like:  circumstances, personalities, and desired results?

We may even ask ourselves:  “Which is easier?”  But, then the follow-up question would be: “Is life about being easy?”

There are mathematical processes for decision-making out there, where you can rank priorities and weigh probabilities.  While that may give you some intellectual peace of mind, is practical advice and rationalization the best way to go?

Either way, I came to realize that maybe the answer is to take all three bits of advice and roll them into one solid piece of advice and do all three.  Maybe we don’t always have to choose (per se).

What other choices in our life do not really need to be choices of “either/or” but rather ”both/and”?

A recent #BlogChat on Twitter spurred me to contemplate the value of writing short pieces.  During the Twitter Chat, I was challenged to write a Series of posts to break up my usual style of writing longer blog posts.

As an analyst, I naturally started weighing the pros and cons of writing short pieces.  I even considered writing a Blog Series about that.  That was until it later occurred to me that it didn’t really make sense to write a lot about writing a little.

So, I decided to condense my now defunct series on “Being Concise” into the following:

Let’s first consider the two writers whom I most aspire to be like: one writes very brief thought-provoking pieces (namely, Seth Godin); the other writes thought-provoking pieces with lots of narrative and supporting research (namely, Malcolm Gladwell).  For me, both are equally thought-provoking.  I wouldn’t say either one is “better” than the other, as each is effective in his own style.

To use terminology from the marketing world, in our time-starved world, we are competing as much for “share of mind” as for “share of wallet”, so whatever our writing style, we need to attract then hold our readers’ attention as long as possible.  This is quite different from what some would call a “dumbing-down” approach to writing (though that could be a potential result of some attempts at writing concisely.)

What does matters, similar to what Jonathan Fields points out in his post, “Fiction or Nonfiction: Who Cares?”, is that our writing style might just need to evolve with the times because we do care, i.e., we, as readers, want to leave our reading experience “different from when we began.” 

To me, what and how we write comes down to one short question: “For what purpose are we writing/reading?”

Getting someone to think or feel differently about something can be achieved in more than one way. In some cases, it might only take a tight, clearly-focused op-ed or commentary (see:  “Good Press: 6 Steps to Writing Killer Op-Eds and Commentaries”). In other cases, we might need a 550-page book that explains to us how to achieve “The 4-Hour Body” (p.s. I’m really enjoying this new book by Tim Ferriss).

Either way, how long or short our writing is, more than likely, isn’t as important as how effective we are in what we are trying to achieve with our writing.

In the current economy many people are cutting back on “extras”, or at least attempting to.  But are we as frugal as we think we are?

Maybe we should start by getting clear on what frugality means to each of us. As we know, frugality can have a full range of definitions and connotations which range from the negative, i.e., being a Scrooge-like miser, to the positive, i.e., being a monk-like minimalist.

In general, as expressed in this blog post entitled: “Frugality – Not Just for the Poor”, frugality is described by The Frugal Goddess as a positive, i.e., “it is about getting the maximum out of available resources.”

Clearly “cutting back” is not the same as adopting frugality as a lifestyle, but it is definitely a step in the right direction, especially if building up savings and digging out of debt (or similarly: trying to lose weight; or getting healthier; or managing our time better; etc.) is our ultimate long-term goal.

Is there value in being “only sometimes” frugal? That all depends on: which definition of frugal we are using; what our goals are; and also if we are as frugal as we think we are.

For example, let’s say we are “frugal” on 90% of our supermarket shopping (or dieting; or exercising; or time management; etc.), but then feel we deserve to splurge on some extras which end up costing us more than we initially saved.  Is that maximizing resources?  Or is that being “penny wise and pound foolish”, i.e., “overcareful about trivial things and undercareful about important ones”?

Can we really be happy being frugal in a world of plenty alongside “the Joneses”?  Excess spending (or, over-eating, or mindless TV watching/gaming, etc.) can quickly become a lifestyle choice without us even realizing we’ve made those choices.   Cutting out (or at least cutting back on) those things that we don’t “need” shouldn’t be considered a sacrifice or deprivation (though it may seem so at first) because those are things that are not adding real value to our lives anyway.

Maybe the question we should be asking is:  Does this “Excess Stuff” (or Fast Foods/Snacks, or Time Killers, etc,) truly make us happier in the long run (though it may seem it does in the short term) and does it get us closer to achieving any goal(s)?

Is frugality an “All or Nothing” Game?  Or can we strike a balance between the two extremes?  What if we filled the voids created by what we cut back on with a new appreciation for the simple things of life that would become more apparent if we only believed they existed and we made the effort to find them (e.g., calm; peace of mind; patience; relaxation; awareness; etc.)?

Articles that I recommend which further exemplify the benefits of frugality include:

(1)   “Simplify, and Savor Life” by Leo Babuto, Zen Habits.

(2) In “Black Friday: The World Tells You to Shop, We Ask You to Stop” by Inhabitat, consider this quote: “We may live in a world governed by consumerism, but next time you’re standing in hour-long queues with a cart-full of goods, you should really consider whether or not this is something you could skip. We think those hours could certainly be spent more wisely with the same friends and family you happen to be shopping for.”

(3) “What Is Frugality Really?” by The Frugal Goddess.

What questions would you ask yourself (or others) about frugality?

How comfortable are you (and/or your friends, family, associates, etc.) with uncertainty?

From my experience, such as when it comes to health advice/studies, it seems that the last thing most people want to hear is that findings are “inconclusive”, i.e., that the result is neither negative nor positive.  There is no certainty in that.  That would leave many of us in a limbo state of not knowing what to do with the information we have.

Though, that is not to say that we couldn’t come up with a conclusion anyway. 

Clearly it is always possible to “find facts to fit any point of view.”  Tim Berry, of Palo Alto Software, nicely summarizes this point in a post where he even humorously suggests a  “facts for hire” business concept.

But before coming up with any conclusion simply for the sake of having one, maybe we should consider, would this kind a pseudo-certainty really benefit us in the end?

Information (facts and data) are too often misused.  Some of the time this is done intentionally or ignorantly, as in biased out-of-context statements (for example, as in Sarah Palin’s recent swipe at Michelle Obama’s national pride.)

Other times this occurs out of the best of intentions when we fall into thinking-traps. Consider the very strongly scientifically supported book, “The China Study”, by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, which was just as strongly and scientifically refuted by Denise Minger.  Who is right?  Maybe they both are.

Very rarely do I see that people say that the facts are just the facts, e.g., that they can’t (or won’t) draw any conclusions about them. 

That’s what I love so much about the Twinkie Diet Professor’s conclusion about his recent Twinkie Diet experiment.  Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, concluded the following:   “I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it’s healthy. I’m not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it’s irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn’t say that.” (Note:  This was clearly an experiment to prove a particular point, with clearly many reasons not to suggest that this is a long term health solution for anyone.)

Yet Professor Haub could have very easily drawn any conclusion, e.g., if A, then B.  But, he didn’t.  And, I feel that we should really appreciate that.

I’ve been wondering more and more lately if perhaps we might not be better served to become more comfortable with uncertainty.  To not look at things as only being good or bad, but instead more as: “it depends”.  What if we looked more at possibilities and likelihoods, and weighed those against the potential consequences of action or inaction.  Add to that, the self-determination of figuring out what works best for each of us individually, then collectively. 

What might the dialogue become if more people appreciated the inconclusive?  Would that really tie us up in analysis paralysis, or could that instead perhaps free us to embrace “knowledge acquisition” at whole new levels (rather than as a finite state)?

So, I’m curious, what do you think?  I would love to read your thoughts below.

Some people have no shyness whatsoever about offering their advice and opinions, writing books and articles, commenting, or expressing their thoughts in any variety of ways.  Others are just the opposite.  (And, there is a whole gamut of personalities that fall anywhere in between those two extremes.)

Conventional wisdom states that if you know more about a particular subject than someone else (or if you have a particular insight based on your unique experiences), then that qualifies you (and sometimes even obligates you) to share that information with others.  Yet many of us don’t feel that that is enough of a reason to do so.

For those of us who have gotten used to “holding our tongues”, here are four reasons why we may be doing so, and why I believe we should re-consider our reticence.  Can you relate to any or all of the following four points, too?

Argument #1.  My opinion might not be “right”.  According to Seth Godin’s recent rant about “The Deliberately Uninformed”, the only way to better “understand how the world works” is to take an interest in it and participate in the dialogue in order to learn, grow, and build on our learnings, regardless of whether imperfect information surrounds us.  He states: “Not all books are correct or useful. Not all accepted science is correct. The conventional wisdom might just be wrong. But ignoring all of it because the truth is now fashionably situational and in the eye of the beholder is a lame alternative.”

Argument #2.  I’m not confident/arrogant enough to believe I have all the answers.  It’s actually a good thing to know that you don’t know everything.  This reminds me of a point Malcolm Gladwell makes in his recent New Yorker article, “Small Change”, which is about how today’s social media activism is totally different from the engagement and risk of activism from the 1960s.  (Note:  This is an awesome article that I highly recommend reading.)  Anyway, he states that “Innovators tend to be solipsists” (i.e., this is a word I had to look up myself, meaning: that they think their thoughts are all that there is.)  That’s why it’s important to communicate and venture outside of our own echo-chambers, to find people with not only similar, but also opposing, and radically different thoughts in order to see (and consider) potential flaws in our arguments.

Argument #3.  I don’t represent a specific-enough POV.   There’s a difference between wanting to be right, or needing to win a debate, versus solving a problem.  The world doesn’t need more sound bites such as from “politicians being on message.”  What the world does need is more problem-solving.  This reminds me of a recent panel discussion on the State of Digital Communications in Politics at the recent Blog World Expo 2010.  One point made was that “the political center is not very well represented, and actually unrepresented in social media.” Maybe this is because polarization makes for better sound-bites and is easier to argue.  Either way, this should be even more of a reason to get beyond the sound-bites and start sifting through the details in order to arrive at real solutions that actually do represent what the people collectively want (if I’m not being too much of an idealist here.)

Argument #4.  I don’t know where to begin.  Sometimes we don’t know where to begin and that paralyzes us from making commitments and taking action.  Again conventional wisdom states that the best way find our target audience is to narrow our focus to something very specific (at least, that’s how SEO works.)  But consider this bit of advice from the book “REWORK”, by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, founders of 37 Signals.  Their book is full of bite-sized counter-intuitive, non-conventional wisdom on how they became successful by doing things their own way.  The advice they quote is from Stanley Kubrick to new filmmakers: “when you’re new at something, you need to start creating.  The most important thing is to begin.” 

All four of these arguments have been too true for me for way too long.  It’s now time for me to start creating, to be okay with not having a clear focus, to not obsess about needing to have all the answers, and to not worry about being exactly “right”.   What about you? Could this work for you (or someone you know), too?

There is no shortage of quotes posted on Twitter every minute of every day. 

Many are the motivational kind.  The kind of quote that is easy for Tweeters to find, post, and re-Tweet.  The kind that people can instantly feel inspired by regardless of how helpful it actually is or isn’t.

[I don’t want to digress too much, but the following sidebar might be worth considering in this context.  Consider this post that points out how overemphasizing motivation, and ignoring ability and triggers, is what makes Facebook Behavior Change Apps ineffective: “5 Reason Facebook Behavior Change Apps Aren’t Working”.] 

But I digress a bit with that.  Getting back to my point….

Sometimes I, too, enjoy the clever words in motivational quotes. 

However, more often than not, these quotes also just make me want to point out the non-universality of their contrite claims.

I don’t know why, but I often feel compelled to want to reply to those quotes with a “Yes, but…” answer.  I rarely do, publicly, but, if thoughts could talk….

Here’s an example of the type of quote I’m talking about here.  This one came across my Twitterstream earlier today: 

“No farmer ever plowed a field by running it over in his mind” ~ George E. Woodbury. 

Ok. I get it.  Thinking about something isn’t going to get that something done.  That makes sense.

However, instead, my first reaction would be to reply to this apparent bashing of the thinking process with something like this:  “Maybe there is a good reason why the farmer didn’t want to plow the field right away.”

Maybe I should instead be asking myself, why do I even bother arguing with myself over quotes anyway? But that’s probably a question for another day.

Maybe it’s just that I believe “thinking” and “restraint” have served me well over time. Though maybe this  is why I find it harder to write more often than I currently do, too.

At the same time, I believe I’m open enough to consider a possible self-contradiction here.  Today I also came across a blog post which happened to have a very similar concept to the quote I wanted to argue with above.  Same concept, but this post instead strikes an emotional chord with me that I can relate to on a more specific level.  Consider this post by Ken Robert, @MildlyCreative: “An Angry Letter from Your Big Idea.”

Maybe I just seem to prefer more words, details, and explanations (e.g., the Who, What, Where, When and Whys of a concept) rather than over-generalizations and over-simplifications.   Maybe it’s more about how those words are expressed rather than their bottom line anyway.  

But that’s what motivates me.  What about you?

There were some recent news reports that the board game, Scrabble, was changing the rules of the game to now allow Proper Nouns.  

But, before anyone, who hasn’t yet heard the whole story, gets overly excited about nothing, be comforted to know that any kind of sacrilegious move like that would not apply to the Classic version, but would only apply to an upcoming Family Friendly version of the game.

While Scrabble really is “just a game”, our first knee-jerk reaction to the initial news reports does tell us something about ourselves. 

Probably the more outraged people are either really serious players or simply very rules-based people, as opposed to the more casual player who is happy to play to any set of agreed-upon rules.  Which are you?

Maybe you are the type that takes comfort in traditions?

Or, maybe you are someone who has worked hard to master the strategy of the game by memorizing the right words to take advantage of those double and triple letter/word scores?

Personally, I enjoy finding long words which surprisingly amount to very few points compared to those strategically placed short high-point combinations.  For some reason, I don’t seem to want to change my ways in order to get more points?  What does that say about me?

Or, maybe you are the rule-breaker who would be the first one to get your friends to agree to not play by the official rules anyway?

Could we even go so far as to suggest that if you experienced a strong adverse reaction to the initial news reports, that perhaps this reaction may have to do with more than just the Scrabble game, but might reflect how you feel about the need to follow rules in other areas of your life?  …and vice versa?

I don’t know.  What do you think? Is it okay to mess with the Classics?

As you may have noticed, it’s been a few months since I’ve last updated this blog. 

As you may not know, this wasn’t exactly a planned hiatus.  Probably not unlike other writers out there, somehow I got myself into this rut where I didn’t believe I had anything worthwhile to say that wasn’t already probably being said by someone else.  So, I stopped writing.  Though, that is not to say that I didn’t miss the satisfaction of getting my thoughts down in black and white, which I truly did miss.

Anyway, a number of different inspirations have come together for me lately to inspire me to recommit to some new goals for this blog and I wanted to start by sharing these insights with you here.  I’m hoping these will guide me on a new course, one that we’ll both consider worthy of sticking around for.

My latest realizations are:

(1)    I am truly impressed and inspired by what blogger, Josh Hanagarne of the “World’s Strongest Librarian“, has accomplished with his life and his blog in the past year.  Read about it here: “World’s Strongest Librarian is One Year Old”.

(2)    In reading Chris Brogan’s challenge to blog about the importance of story in your life, I  realized I need more “story” in my life.  Not the kind of made up stuff, but the kind of real “experiencing life” kind of things.  I’ve spent enough time around other people’s “campfires” listening to their stories and I now need to take my turn and find my own stories to tell.

(3)    Like many others, health and fitness has finally become much more of a priority in my life.  I love “The Biggest Loser” and I enjoy following people like Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper online.  And as my fellow bloggers write about the role that fitness is playing in their lives, I’m finding more and more positive influences to follow.  I was particularly motivated by Josh’s post on Adam Glass’s blog and I believe in their message of “Nobody To Impress But Yourself“.

(4)    I was also glad to come across Problogger’s reminder post on “How to Choose a Niche to Blog About“.  I’ve been at this “lost” place before, but now I feel closer to a resolution.  I’m an analyst by trade and know there has got to be some way to create a niche around “thinking” that can be fun and interesting.  I’m on a quest to find (or create) that path, believing it can and will be found, again feeling encouraged by this “Go After Your Goals” post.

(5)    Then there is this steady stream of news reports that I keep reading about studies that contradict conventional wisdom. Studies and statistics always seem factual, yet are still easily misleading and confusing.  Consider the following:

Long-term use of osteoporosis drugs linked to hip breaks
Experts debate merits of breast cancer screening, mammograms
A Wine Diet Study Shows Alcohol Helps Women Lose Weight
Can Your MultiVitamin Give You Cancer?
New Studies Eat Into Diet Math

What do we do with studies such as these?  Don’t they just kill our trust in everything?  (And, that’s not even mentioning what is being reported about politics these days.) Either way, I look forward to exploring philosophies around these kinds of topics with my fellow bloggers and readers.

While by no means am I an arrogant person, I do feel confident to state that I realize I do have things to say, as I believe everyone does.  I’m hoping that what I have to say and how I say it helps others in what they have to say. 

Anyway, who knows what the next 365 days will hold for any one of us.  All I know is that not writing is not going to get me any closer to working through any of my many thoughts and inspirations.  So here begins one analyst’s quest for some worthwhile stories to tell….

The latest “rule” about the “new economy” and the “new job market” (or, rather, on how to take advantage of the economic downturn by becoming an entrepreneur) seems to be: “get ahead by breaking the rules”. 

I’ve always found that advice to be a bit suspect or a bit too “convenient”, overshadowing the role that luck and selective memories often play. 

Of course, that’s not to suggest that we don’t benefit from the “learning opportunity” of missteps, whether due to breaking the rules or not.  However, when it comes to rules, sometimes the “learning” is that some rules aren’t meant to be broken in a willy-nilly way.

Now, you probably don’t really need my advice on this.  There are lots of books on this topic, for example:  “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell;  “Ignore Everybody” by Hugh MacLeod;  “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter.  I’m not shooting down any of these authors or their books.  I actually have all three of those books on my book shelf.

Actually, I probably don’t even need to write a whole blog post about this, especially since I could pretty much consolidate my main point into 140 characters as I did on Twitter here:

Yet, if I were to elaborate a bit, I’d suggest that maybe there should be some rules, or at least guidelines, on what to know about rules before breaking them. If such rules on “how to break the rules” were to exist, here’s what I think they might include:

1. Know what rules exist, both explicitly and implicitly, in your realm of operation before trying to change things. Don’t assume rules do or don’t exist as you imagine them.
2. Know why certain rules exist.  “It’s always been done that way” shouldn’t always be blindly accepted, but may not be without merit either.  Investigate.
3. Know who created the rules, when, and for what intended purpose.
4. Know if the right rules were created and if they are meeting their intended purpose.
5. Know when to push the boundaries and when to respect them.  Don’t naively mess with strong forces like Mother Nature.
6. Know when “the times” have outgrown previously necessary/useful rules.  Rules seem to have pseudo- unwritten expiration dates.  Know when they are fresh and need to be respected.  Know when their time is about up or overdue.
7. Know if rules are being appropriately applied.  When the context, situation, and players change, do the rules need to change, too?
8. Know if existing rules are being respected and consistently enforced.  If not, find out why before taking action on it.
9. Know if old rules need to be tweaked, tossed, or replaced by new rules.  Chaos and anarchy isn’t always the best and only counter rule.
10. Know if the rules are hindering, hampering, or hurting more than they are helping.  Are they hampering creativity, productivity, efficiency, and flexibility?  Creativity, innovation, or uniqueness are key differentiators.

In general, whether we like them or not, rules do serve a purpose. They maintain order.  At the same time, rules aren’t always perfect; some are good, others are not so good (and there exists a full range of possibilities in between). 

For example, consider basic road traffic rules.  They basically work (e.g., what side of the road to drive on; what signs and symbols represent; etc.) 

Other rules are more subjective (e.g., company cultures, dress codes, ethics), but are still necessary to create guidelines of behavior, fairness, and civility.

There is also that much quoted phrase that goes something like this:  “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”  But as I began this post, I’ll reiterate the point about our selective memories; let me know if that blanket statement about “asking for forgiveness” has never bit anyone in the behind before either.

What do you think?  How easy is it to succeed at “breaking the rules”?