BOOK OF THE WEEK: "Training Camp" by Jon Gordon

As we're almost ready to close the book on 2020, we must look back on what the tumultuous and challenging year taught us. While a difficult year with many peaks and valleys, 2020 was apropos* to Jon Gordon's "Training Camp." (I know, another Jon Gordon book, I had to. I went far too long with pushing out a Jon Gordon book of the week post.) 

A brief synopsis of "Training Camp" focuses on an undrafted football running back trying to make the team. After a stellar performance, that included running back a kickoff for a touchdown, a in the team's first pre-season game put him in the limelight. But a tweak of the ankle on that kick return sidelined him for weeks and brought him back to feelings of frustration and anxiety. 

Those feelings of frustration, anxiety, uncertainty and fear for of the future that we all can relate to this year. We're we are in need of our own Coach Ken to help guide us through the process of becoming the best of the best - especially during this challenging time. 

One of those 11 traits the best people, in all industries, have is the Trait Number 6. They are mentally stronger than everyone else. Look at Tom Brady as an example. He was a sixth round draft pick that nobody expected anything of, including his college coaches, but he didn't listen to his naysayers. He did his own thing and and has six Super Bowl rings and a pair of league MVPs to show for it. 

Being the best is simply tuning out the distractions and zoom-focusing on what they want (another thing the best are great at) and want it more than anyone else. 

Harvard is generally used as an example as the best academic institution in the world, but how did they obtain that title? It's because the people at Harvard and the students it admits are never satisfied. They are always striving to become better and don't shy away from being uncomfortable. 

There is a saying on this blog, which was originally coined by, currently, a Boston College assistant baseball coach, that "little drops make big drops." While yes it was said in a sarcastic tone at the time (filling up water coolers), the phrase is also part of what makes the best people the best. The fourth trait is the best are able to do the ordinary things better than everyone else. Whether that is filling up a water cooler or doing, statting a game, or driving a bus, the best are able to excel at the fundamentals. 

It's being able to execute well on the fundamentals that lead the way for bigger opportunities and once that chance arrives, the best are able able to seize the moment. There may be a little fear in when thrust into the spotlight, but the best are the ones that overcome that feeling. It may be a slightly uncomfortable feeling in the moment, but the best dive into that feeling and embrace it. They keep themselves open and are constantly in "The Gold Universe,' not thinking about what will happen if I make this putt or miss the free throw. 

They are constantly living in the moment and 'think like a rookie,' but also realize the success they may experience is only temporary. Nothing lasts forever. Everything is temporary, but it is more important to leave a legacy. The image of yourself that you leave in people's minds becomes more paramount than whatever success you achieve along the way. 

And the final thing that the best do that the merely great don't do is, they bring out the best in the people around them. If you are constantly bringing out the best in the people around you that is something to take great pride in and keep striving to do. "Helping them up."

* Apropos, for those who really don't want to break out the dictionary means "very appropriate to a particular situation." 

BLOG: Neighbor Takes Young YouTuber To Dr. Phil - Intervention or Controlling?

I don't usually watch Dr. Phil. But I did last Friday, because Jack Doherty, a 17-year-old rising YouTube sensation, made an appearance and what I found was shocking. Dr. Phil made him look really bad and made it seem like his parents and brother were concerned. 

Catching a glimpse of a few of Jack's more recent videos - including the "Karen videos" that landed him on the show - he is your typical teenage YouTuber that will do anything to get himself attention. But his pranks and antics are not malicious. They are what they are just pranks. 

Of course his mother is concerned about his school-work and academics. She's been featured in many of his videos expressing this very real concern. His father is worried too, but realizes that his is his son's lively-hood. It's the way he makes his money. And finally his older brother, Michael, has been pulled in to some of Jack's pranks - whether it's on his own accord or not remains to truly be known. So the entire family is supportive of Jack's YouTube career. 

Now where he has pushed the envelope is with his more recent "Karen videos" which all started with him riding his motorized dirt bike behind with a friend behind an old church that had a hill. The neighbor did not like it and called the police. When Jack and his friend saw a cruiser drive by to patrol the neighbor, they left. 

A few days later, Jack and his friends went back to the old church to ride their bikes and that's when all hell broke loose. A woman (Rachel, but nicknamed "Karen" by Jack) came walking across the church lawn to confront Jack. In a harsh tone she said "you can't be here; you're not allowed here this is private property." 

Sure it was private property and Jack and his friends should not have been riding their bikes there, but it was not Rachel's job to walk across and confront him. If it was her property, it would be a different story. But she came across the street and verbally accosted him. Jack being only 17 years old did the only thing he knew, he hastily quipped back at her and that's when everything blew up. 

Her parental instincts took over and demanded that she speak to his parents. He gave her his address and she showed up at his doorstep. At the moment his father wasn't home, but when Jack called him and said Rachel was at their house he knew he had to come home and speak with her. 

Rachel expressed her concerns to his father - some were very real (i.e. not wearing a helmet), but the others appeared to be disguised as a her frustration of his "lack of respect" towards her. If she was able to disassociate and look at the scenario as an outsider, she may come to the realization that the way she approached him from the beginning was not respectful to him (i.e. marching across the front of the church and screaming at him). 

She also began to take exception that he was using her as clickbait for his channel. Which, when she came to his house, he had every right to film her. He went the extra distance to blur out her face and have his lawyers oversee each video - which in billable hours, costs a pretty penny. Once his lawyers and manager deemed appropriate, he posted the video. But she kept coming back on two other occasions (confronting both his friend and mother) and harassed him to remove the videos. 

Now here's where Jack went wrong. Seeing this was getting good content and his fans wanted to see him continue to push the limits, he drove his dirt bike past Rachel's house, forcing her to come outside and call his father. A few days later, he went further and decided to "ding dong ditch" her, making her come to his house again. These two instances, Jack clearly was in the wrong. 

If he did not do these two things, things probably would have blown over. And if Rachel continued to come back to his house and forcing him to take down the videos, she would've been at fault for disturbing him. But Jack's only 17 years old so he wasn't thinking that way. (Not an excuse but a reason.) 

On the Dr. Phil show, when they brought Rachel in via phone. She sounded pleasant and nice, but came across as though she was trying to parent Jack herself. Jack issues an apology to Rachel for antagonizing her, but she doesn't accept that apology. She responds that she "doesn't know he knows how to give a genuine" apology.

It's evident he doesn't know how to do that. He's only 17 years old, (again not an excuse), but it's not her job to make him realize that. She can't force him to understand that; he needs to come to that conclusion on his own. When it all boils down it's Rachel, the adult in this circumstance, stooping down to his level and trying to to teach him something when that's not her responsibility. She should've accepted his "apology" however it was worded even if she didn't wholeheartedly agree with it. It would've been water under the bridge and everyone would've moved on. 

A good apology, according to the late Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, has three parts: 1. "I'm sorry;" 2. "It was my fault;" 3. "How do I make it right?" (Most people skip that third part.)

Jack was attempting the third part with his offer to come over and do what whatever she wanted, but she continued to educate him that's not how an apology works. Well, Rachel, that is how an apology works. He was trying to do the third part. He was trying to make it right. Rachel wanted it one specific way, her way, and wouldn't budge from that. 

I feel bad for both of them. Neither deserved this, but Jack was being a picked on by someone who should know better and not worry about what her neighbors are doing. Because in the end, he's no different than her and she's no different than him. He earned the money he made. They are both humans. 

BLOG: "Be The Hybrid"

"Be The Hybrid?" Why that's a weird phrase for the title of this blog. What exactly does it mean? 

It's quite simple. Merriam-Webster defines the term "hybrid" as "something that has two different types of components performing essentially the same function." For example, in golf the a hybrid club is a combination between a fairway wood and iron and for some like myself who cannot hit a wood from the fairway, a hybrid is a very, very functional club. 

The hybrid is also a very useful club in golf. It serves many purposes. It's versatile option to have in bag. 

I came to this realization when trying to decide what clubs to use in the annual three-club tournament - where you have to play 18 holes with just three clubs. This leads to the question "do I take the putter?" My original thought process was I was going to take it because the reality is the putter is the club you use on every hole. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized selecting the putter was not the right choice. 

My rationality behind this was the putter could only be used in one instance - on the green or in its surrounding areas. Coming to this realization, I needed three clubs that could be used in any situation, unfortunately that is not case with the putter so I made the difficult decision to keep it out of the bag. Instead, I opted for a more unconventional route. I replaced the putter with another wedge in addition to the hybrid and seven-iron I already had in the bag. The decision turned out well. 

The dictionary defines versatility as the "ability to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities." It's exactly what the hybrid is.

While specialists may see a bump in pay, it is the people who know how to do a little of everything, but may not be the best, who are the one's that become the most valuable. Especially today. Having expertise in one field, can limit you to different possibilities and opportunities. 

Being able to do a bunch of different things will be more beneficial than being able to do just one thing. 

So don't be like the putter; be the hybrid.

BOOK OF THE WEEK: "A Promised Land" by Barack Obama -- YOUR AVERAGE, JOE!

I have not finished Barack Obama's most recent, 800-page book, but decided this post could not wait. It is too timely. It is not going to go over the whole book, just one particular part: when he picked Joe Biden as his running-mate and Vice-President. 

In a time where there is so much divisiveness and in the middle of a "once-in-a-generation" health crisis, Biden is the right person. Not long after the AP called the Presidential race for Joe Biden, I texted a friend and teammate from college who is from Dover, Delaware. She got to meet, at the time, Senator Biden as a high school student when she was helping urge fellow young people to get out and vote. 

Obama narrowed his choice down to a pair of senators from DelMarVa, Biden and Tim Kaine from Virginia. While Obama was closer to Kaine, personally, he opted to go with the elder Biden, who was 19 years older and on paper was drastically different from him. But his decision was easy, Biden provided an inside track for Obama and an opportunity to win-over more voters across the aisle in Washington. Obama needed someone who was an "insider" since he, himself, was an outsider. 

Obama described Biden as "a man without inhibitions, willing to share whatever popped into his head." I think we can all agree that is is an accurate statement. Look no further than the first Presidential debate, which resembled two bickering third-graders rather than a pair of Presidential candidates. With Donald Trump badgering him, Biden said something that 81 million Americans also wanted say, "will you shut up man." (Biden's clown comment was equally as great, too.) 

Biden is a like-able and amicable guy, who enjoyed pontificating. Sometimes he would put his foot in his mouth and his words landed him in hot water, but despite his verbal missteps, Joe was a smart man and a genuinely good man. There was nothing malicious about the way Biden went about his work and his inside knowledge of Washington, and intellect could give Obama strength he desperately needed. 

It wasn't just his inside knowledge of the workings of Washington. Obama saw in Biden, Joe's passion. Anyone who has had a learning disability knows the stigmatization that comes with it - especially if the disability is outwardly facing. And Joe's was. He had a bad stutter as a child, but worked through it so well that now you hardly notice it - except on rare occasions. 

Joe also knew what it was like to endure unimaginable tragedy multiple times in his life. He lost his first wife and daughter in a car accident that left his remaining two sons injured. He commuted back-and-forth from Washington to Delaware each night to stay with Hunter and Beau in the hospital. He knew the challenges Hunter and Beau were facing were not easy. Not only were they hurt in a car accident they had to physically recover from, but the scars of losing their mother and younger sister was something they were going to have to live with forever. 

The wounds of such a tragedy did, eventually, scar over, but they weren't totally gone. Hunter went through his own internal issues over the course of his life and in 2013 Joe's oldest and namesake, Beau, was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer. The prognosis was not good and in his final days, Beau made his dad promise him one thing, that he wouldn't run and hide. 

Beau passed away in May of 2015. With the book slowing closing on the Obama Administration, Biden had a decision to make. Does he make his third Presidential run with the past two being unsuccessful? Still mourning the loss of his son, Joe shut the door on a chance to become the Democratic nominee in 2016. It was a gut-wrenching decision because at 73 years old, he figured that may have been his last best chance. 

But then something else happened. Donald Trump. 

When the country badly needs unification and reaching across the aisle, this was Biden's time to step to the plate. His authenticity and genuine character is something the nation needs right now. 

Book of the Week: "Just Don't Be An Asshole" by Kate Kinney Cartwright

In 2020, it has become very easy to become an asshole. We are all working remotely and stuck in our virtual Zoom boxes (thank you Simmons field hockey senior Liz Poteat for that metaphor). There are certain things that we will say via email, text, or Tweet, that we wouldn't ordinarily say in person. It's become way too easy this year to be an asshole. 

While perusing Barnes & Noble, I came across Kate Kinney Cartwright's book "Just Don't Be An Asshole: A Surprisingly Necessary Guide To Being A Good Guy." A book she primarily penned to give to her two teenage sons as a reminder that while being an asshole may feel good in the moment, in the end it will backfire. 

(Editor's note: I originally had created a different thumbnail for this post. It was more creative and, potentially, funnier - aimed directly at someone who was an asshole to me, but upon reflection if I included it, I would be the asshole in that situation. But I didn't want it to backfire on my end. So in Michelle Obama's world view, I'm going high when they go low. Private message me on one of my social media channels if you really want to see the first one.) 

In the working world it is of utmost importance not to be an asshole. It's Pre-School 101 - yet some may need a refresher course. You get more out of it by not being a jerk to your colleagues, supervisors and peers. If you're not an asshole, and an otherwise pleasant person to be around, people will end up doing good things for you. I've experience this first hand. 

E-Mail is a necessary evil in the working world. We get so many emails a day that deserve a response and one of the worst things to do is receive an email addressed only to you asking you to do something, and not following up with a 'got it' or a 'will do.' Leaving the sender guessing as to if you're going to do it or even if you saw the email, puts you in "asshole territory." Acknowledgment of receipt and responding appropriately; it's the courteous thing to do and let's the sender know you're on it. 

Speaking of email, it also paramount that you read every email in its entirety. This may be a monotonous task, especially if it's a long message, but it leaves very little to be misunderstood. If you only read the first half of the message, you may miss an important question at the end. 

While we're on the subject of email content, if you're recipients are reading the entire message, please keep it to the point. If you're sending an email to your constituents around the Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day, it is really unnecessary to add an obscure fact that "Columbus didn't discover America, Vespucci did."* This random piece of trivia doesn't affect the email content, so it should be left out. And you're not showcasing your intelligence, you're acting pretentious, which is an asshole tendency. 

In those meetings we find ourselves sitting in at work (i.e. "Circle Time" in Pre-School 101), it's imperative to "kill it." Be prepared to speak when it's your turn for area updates. Come with substance and what you are working on that week. This is your time time shine and show your co-workers what you've been doing - especially if you have a guest attending that meeting that week. If that guest is a member of the senior administration team, you're going to want to impress that person. Even if that guest isn't an upper admin, but a fellow colleague, it is still important to show up with substance. 

And last but certainly not least, still "respect your elders." The veterans in whatever field you are in know, the youngsters are around the corner and are rising exponentially. The know the younger generation knows technology better than they do and brings a different skillset to the table, which is intimidating to them because they know their time is limited. But the skill of experience as well as the skill of "not-being-an-asshole" is something they still can bring to the table. So respect them. 

*  - Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant and western explorer in the late 15th century, but the fact that he discovered the America's prior to Christopher Columbus is not entirely accurate. Columbus landed upon the Americas believing it was Asia and refusing to believe there was a landmass between Europe and Asia on western side. It was Vespucci, who deemed the Americas were not part of Asia, thus deriving the name "America." But still no need to include this random factoid in a work email.