If today were

                                                    

the last day of my life,

                                                                 

would I want to do what

                                                                   

I am about to do today?”

                                                            

Apple founder Steve Jobs in an inspirational commencement address video my son sent me http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-3827595897016378253&hl posed the question above while noting that he asks it of himself every morning when he wakes up. 

To the young graduates he’s addressing, he says, “Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life!”

How many of us wish we would have heard that advice when we were younger, and of course be able to be tuned in and mature enough to have acted on it?  There is, Jobs points out, “no reason not to follow your heart.”

The point is, it’s never too late.   

I met a 40-something-old plumber today (not “Joe”) who loves plumbing.  I met with two dedicated auto dealership clients (the 40-ish President and the 30-ish IT Manager) of www.igburton.com  and two bright young men (the President and an Account Manager) of www.Delaware.net (eCommerce Services, Custom Web Development, SEM, etc) who clearly enjoy the work they do and the world their business lives in. 

All in the same day, I also spoke with a 50 year-old mother of three who loves mothering, and bought coffee from a (looked to be almost 70) checker at WAWA who obviously liked being a checker at www.wawa.com. 

Unusual?  ABSOLUTELY.  I sometimes go for weeks on end without encountering anyone who’s happy with what she or he is doing. 

In fact, I’ve heard some study findings that report 90-95% of Americans are not happy in their jobs.  Even if this happens to be only half right, then the bottom line is that a majority (or close to majority) of people in the U.S. are doing lousy work!  What?  If someone’s unhappy at work, he or she is not performing well, and vice versa.  Now just look at this post again before you click off . . . it’s a whole plateful of food for thought!  Halalpiar  

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These networks,” the doctor continued, “and the borderline-Marxist viewpoint candidates they ushered into the spotlight, have managed to captivate and control your brain!”  

     “I’m sorry to tell you this, my friend, but you,” the doctor leered cynically over the tops of his reading glasses as he shifted his stethoscope from his neck to his shoulders and frowned parentally, “you have a severe case of NMD, and I’m going to recommend you go directly to the hospital for some immediate transfusions.  I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”

     “Aaaaah, NMD?  Twenty minutes?” 

     “Well, yes, Network Media Disorder, and, yes, I can squeeze one more patient into my insurance-company-alloted 12-minute maximum-per-patient examination time period, and still have eight minutes to get to the hospital, which is ten minutes away, but I drive fast!”

     “Er, no, Doc!  I’m needing a little bit more explanation from you than that before I go racing over to the ER for this mysterious transfusion that you seem to have prescribed just a little too quick for my liking.  Am I going to die within the next half hour or what?”

     “No, nothing like that.  It’s just that you need immediate attention or –it’s possible within any given hour– you may find that you have allowed yourself to be brainwashed  beyond repair!” 

     The good doctor tugged at his shirtcollar, took a deep breath and proceeded, “You see, by the time the election ended last week, you had already built up a rampaging attachment to CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, TNT, and MSNBC (and MSNBC all by itself is a rather astonishing attachment considering only seven people in all of America actually watch it!).  

     In the process, your dormant benevalence greeted these screaming liberal radical networks with open arms and you were rapidly transformed into a wild-eyed supporter of electing our nation’s most management-inexperienced, Disneyworld-fantasizing team of candidates in all of history. 

     “These networks,” the doctor continued, “and the borderline-Marxist viewpoint candidates they ushered into the spotlight, have managed to captivate and control your brain.  It was not easy, but with at least $650 million in mysterious campaign donations lining their pockets, they could afford to take some bold and assertive thrusts into your skull, and convince you that change was the answer to the world’s problems, and that the candidates they supported were the second coming of the agents of change.

     “. . . and you, my friend bought into it.  Now you must pay the price of setting yourself up to be thoroughly brainwashed.  It’s either a lobotomy or a transfusion of the fair and balanced FOX network, mixed with some Rush and Sean and Michael and Mark and Laura and Greta, and a few other saviors of society.

     “You need these transfusions before the newly elected dictator attempts to disarm talk radio with his backer’s so-called Fairness Doctrine (it could not possibly be more inappropriately named!) . . . an extraordinarily sick platform if you ask me.  So that, in a nutshell, is why I want you to hurry on over to the ER.  The longer you wait, the more these talking heads will infiltrate your brain, the more you become a sheep, and then we will have some truly major medical challenges to face!”

     “Well, it’s true, Doc, I have become addicted.  I mean Wolfe and Katie and the rest really have welcomed me into their network families and I am afraid of missing even C-Span at this point.  I suppose a little re-balancing wouldn’t be such a bad thing.  I mean, I do rotate my tires, even.”        Halalpiar 

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Take two talkwalks,

                                         

get a good sleep, and 

                                                                          

call me in the morning!

     A very dear old student friend once told me she got more out of a couple of talkwalks than she did an entire semester of classes, readings, and studies. 

     Over the years I have recommended the practice to many business partners, management teams, marriage partners, close friends and relatives.  Typically the feedback has been of positive results. 

     With just a couple more weeks ’til the beginning of D’FIFTH (Dysfunctional Family Invasions For The Holidays), it seemed like good timing to suggest that the best way to work through relationship problems is by taking a walk together, far (even a block away will do) from the madding crowds, and talking out the issues, the conflicts, one at a time, shoulder to shoulder, without yelling, and without interrupting. 

     Now, admittedly, this may be a little harder to do than just reading it here, especially if you’re used to punching, slapping, kicking, biting, screaming, shooting, stabbing, hair-pulling, and ear-twisting.

     It starts with an invitation to step outside.  No, not like in the old cowboy movie saloon scenes, when a fight was imminent and nobody wanted to end up winning and then have to get hit with a huge bill for damages.  It’s more like, Hey, David, you old brother-in-law son-of-a-gun, you, how about we take a walk around the block and try out these two Cuban cigars I got? 

     Or: Let’s have a talk about that old girlfriend of yours? (or motorcycle?  or fishing pole?)  You get the idea.  Next, especially if David agrees, is to take a series of deep breaths [Click Magazine Articles tab above to see “Are You Breathing?” for 4-step guidance on this], and then to not inhale if you’re doing the cigar thing! 

     Have a three or four point agenda in your head — things that will clear the decks so to speak, level the playing field — junk you’d like to square away with this hardass, but don’t want to end up in a stuffing and cranberry sauce fight right after saying grace.  Y’know? 

     You need a little mental bullet list of subjects you can save up and put out there on the sidewalk in front of you as you do this walk.  Oh, and if you only have wooded trails around, maybe just hoof it around the basement a few laps, particularly if David is an outdoorsy type or has a rifle in his pick-up.

     The idea is to: 1) isolate the key points that are troubling you, 2) explain what you’ve been feeling and thinking about, 3) offer some options you can think of, and 4) ask for comments, ideas, and feedback (sometimes it’s best to set up #4 before beginning with #1.)  Be sure if you need to be critical, to criticise behavior, not the person.  Make a point of not interrupting, and of asking David to do the same, as you explain your thoughts.  Keep taking deep breaths.  Keep walking.  Keep talking.  Keep listening.

     Happy talkwalks!  . . .  Halalpiar 

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I couldn’t even imagine

                                                                              

hiring 99 out of 100! 

As you may know, I taught college (business, psychology, career development, creative writing) for many years, full time at Ocean County Coillege, parttime at Pace University and Georgian Court College and with the US Army Columbia College Extension Program.  At present, I’m loosely attached to the corporate training program of a small community college. 

     So, let’s say I have some sense of what college life is all about. 

     Or did!  Today that little piece of enlightened experience was smashed to smithereens.  Well, okay, it was severely dented; I’ve just been waiting a while to find someplace where I could sneek in that smithereens expression; it’s such a cool phrase. 

     Anyway, today I had occasion to be (what I felt like was) the oldest living human being in the middle of one of America’s largest and most populated university campuses. 

     My educated, experienced, objective observations?  99 out of 100 college students are just big high school students, and that’s a gracious understatement. 

     Walking through noontime clouds of cigarette and marijuana smoke, I thought I was thrown back into a time tunnel visiting San Francisco academic institutions in the early 70’s.  Aw, c’mon, Hal, there’s no more drugs and smoking on America’s campuses.  Right.   

     Overhearing how wonderful Obama’s decision was to consider adopting a puppy (nothing about the rest of his press conference, or unanswered questions about taxes, forthcoming Cabinet composition, exchanges with President Bush and all the former living Presidents, a peculiar side comment about Nancy Reagan, etc.), I was reminded of the lectures I used to give on selective perception, or, essentially, hearing only what one wants to hear. 

     At least a dozen students slept soundly (or were perhaps unconscious?) on benches and couches as thousands rushed past them to packed café tables brimming with pizza and beer pitcher lunches (Aw, c’mon, Hal, there’s no more drinking on America’s campuses.  Right.) . . . and more smoke. 

     Oh, and I was very nearly blinded by glittery body jewelry (counting, of course, only what was above, between, or creeping out of clothing, or those marvelous little glistening moments of illumination bursting forth from various tongues whenever the sun hit conversing, gasping, laughing, or drooling mouths at the right angle) . . . enough gold, silver, platinum, brass, bronze, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, to fill a flaming footlocker. 

     Now, I don’t much care how weird a lot of people choose to look; I’ve been there myself; but the pervasiveness of immature attitudes and behaviors that seem to be driven by unorthodox clothes (or lack of), makeup, jewelry, hairstyles and colors left me wondering about the challenge of corporate recruitment efforts, and the slim pickin’s American management has today in the business world. 

     I acknowledge this may not be the case when it comes to filling those beyond-IT-related positions, where wild and wooly and bizarre personalities seem to thrive. 

     So the new corporate America management teams need first and foremost to be surrogate parents, yes?  Go ahead, tell me what you think.  Tell me I’m wrong.  I hope I am.  I couldn’t even imagine hiring 99 out of 100 of the thousands I passed today. 

     That’s a sad commentary on parenting, on educational discipline, and on the take-everything-for-granted lifestyles that permeate today’s young people, descendents of the yuppies!  The times they are a changin’, sang Bob Dylan . . .  Halalpiar         

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You want the truth here? 

With such a big chunk of my business career and two of my books having been devoted to consulting with and counseling doctors (well over a thousand of them — from heart transplant surgeons to chiropractors, veterinarians to shrinks), I’m often asked what doctors are really like . . . 

     You want the truth here, right? 

     Okay, like it is:  I believe that 9 out of 10 doctors are nut cases.  Not only that, but I believe 9 out of 10 doctors would agree!

     Hey, let’s face it, how can you not be whacked out when you spend every waking minute of your life thinking about and tending to other people’s problems . . . even while you’re busy spending the millions of dollars you take home, you’re still preoccupied with healthcare issues. 

     Y’know what I mean?  Like it’s really hard to enjoiy a nice glass of hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine when your beeper keeps paging you because the hospital’s nursing staff is taking turns bitching at you to get you to calm down your exotic poledancer patient who’s trying to gain early admission to the hospital for tomorrow’s scheduled butt wart removal so she can avail herself of “just one of those lil’ ol’ papercupfuls of Oxycontin.”

     They want you to tell the spike-heeled, mink-stolled young lady that threatenening to whip the 80-something year-old ER rent-a-guard with her leather thong won’t work. 

     And it’s yikes so difficult to appreciate your teenage daughter’s trauma over having to wear her old dressage headwear in tomorrow’s horse show because her girlfriend broke the chinstrap on the new one, and can she at least have fifty dollars for lunch at the stables.

     Oh, and not getting enthusiastic about your wife saving $120 off the $3000 flatscreen tv she bought today for the maid’s quarters could have dire consequences at bedtime, which all by itself may be cause to chug-a-lug the rest of the vintage cabernet.

     Ah, yes, and there’s Mr. Stumblebum’s early percocet prescription renewal request at the pharmacy to think about.  The pharmacist says your Stumblebum patient claims his Saint Bernard swallowed the whole plastic bottleful.  According to the old man’s attorney, chauffeur, and dog trainer who all accompanied him to the CVS drive-in window to testify, feeding the beast a dozen tablespoons of petrolium jelly hasn’t even produced the label, and the man wants another month’s worth. 

     First of all, your license could be on the line, but even before first of all–  there’s Mr. S’s bank to consider since they recently financed your $3 million office building and your $5 million oceanfront estate.  Hmmmmm.  License?  Loans.  License?  Loans . . .  

     Yes indeedy, the challenging side of doctoring we seldom see (even on Grey’s Anatomy and ER).  Yet, important medical decisions must be made here.  Ah, waiter, another bottle please . . . red wine is, after all, good for the heart!   Halalpiar      

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     I’m not sure why

     . . . I choose right now to share this, perhaps just a whim, but I ran across some old lesson notes from my professor days and the following paraphrase that students used to love.  It’s of James Aggrey’s “The Parable of the Eagle” as represented in the classic 1971 Addison-Wesley Gestalt book on transactional analysis: Born To Win by Murial James and Dorothy Jongeward.  I thought you might enjoy it, and may want to share it with someone special:

Once upon a time, while walking through the forest, a certain man found a young eagle.  He took it home and put it in his barnyard where it soon learned to eat chicken feed and to behave as chickens behave.

One day, a naturalist who was passing by inquired of the owner why it was that an eagle, the king of all birds, should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens.

“Since I have given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken, it has never learned to fly,” replied the owner.  “It behaves as chickens behave, so it is no longer an eagle.”

“Still,” insisted the naturalist. “it has the heart of an eagle and can surely be taught to fly.”

After talking it over, the two men agreed to find out whether this was possible.  Gently, the naturalist took the eagle in his arms and said, “You belong to the sky and not to the earth.  Stretch forth your wings and fly.”  The eagle, however, was confused; he did not know who he was, and, seeing the chickens eating their food, he jumped down to be with them again.

Undismayed, the naturalist took the eagle on the following day up on the roof of the house, and urged him again, saying, “You are an eagle.  Stretch forth your wings and fly.”  But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and world and jumped down once more for the chicken food.

On the third day, the naturalist rose early anfd took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain.  There, he held the king of birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, “You are an eagle.  You belong to the sky as well as to the earth.  Stretch forth your wings now and fly.”

The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard and up to the sky.  Still he did not fly.  Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the sun and it happened that the eagle began to tremble, slowly he stretched his wings.  At last, with a triumphant cry, he soared away into the heavens.

It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia; it may even be that he even occasionally revisits the barnyard.  But as far as anyone knows, he has never returned to lead the life of a chicken.  He was an eagle thought he had been kept and tamed as a chicken.

     Just like the eagle, say James and Jongeward, a person who has learned to think of herself or himself as something she or he isn’t, can re-decide in favor of her or his real potential . . . and become a winner! 

     You may need a helper, and just the thought of leaving the barnyard may make you tremble, but taking flight? — It’s a choice!  

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We are lucky, privileged,

                                                 

and grateful, but only

                                                 

respect can move us

                                                

forward.” 

     Yesterday morning, I was lucky enough to get a personal tour of a huge pickle packing plant (Yeah, kinda like “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”) that I am evaluating for writing a magazine article.  I kept thinking about the upcoming vote. 

     Yesterday midday, an old friend and his wife arrived from out-of-state for a two-night stay over.  They hadn’t voted.  Another old friend called for some last-minute Election Day advice (I recommended Joe The Plumber).   

     Yesterday afternoon, I was privileged enough to have my marketing and branding guidance sought in a client meeting with two very engaging brothers who run a  hundred year-old business.  Driving there and back, my radio and my mind were filled with the vote.

     Yesterday evening a college I do some parttime teaching for asked for help with enrollment efforts.  I thought of a political campaign.

     This morning, I went out to breakfast with our houseguests after rain cancelled my first “winterball” softball game, then took a ride with them to visit a stormy ocean and bay, cruise a riverbank road, and stop at a few shops along the way.  The thoughts about who best to captain our nation’s ship in stormy seas dominated the sightseeing.

     Then, Kathy and I went to vote (not for Joe The Plumber, by the way).

     This afternoon, I was back to some 80+ emails, and a book editing project.  How is this vote thing doing?

     Woven through each minute of every hour – the vote.  My unconscious mind would not let go of the vote.  Now, maybe other people don’t regard the vote with such respect and anxiety, but I do. 

     My Mother’s Mother was born in Ireland.  My Father was born in Armenia.  Neither lived lives worthy of public recognition, and dirt poor was the answer to how are you? questions.  But both had undying respect for the right, the privilege to vote, the vote. 

     All of my parents’ hard times and suffering existences seemed to be repaired and cleansed every four years with the vote. 

     It was as if every Presidential Election Day, they had the chance, the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and do something truly important in life that came along with the promise of being able to be champions of their own fate by the choices they would make for America’s President and Vice President. 

     And when it turned out that their choices lost, which happened more than not, they would the next day pick up the fallen mantel and march themselves forward with energy and enthusiastic support for even the winners they they found distasteful and disconcerting only the night before. 

     Because:  The Presidency represented, was the symbol of, the freedom they enjoyed in their humble existences.  Sadly, that symbolism has died in recent years through the devisive politics of the loud minority.  Let us pray for return to respect of the office.  Halalpiar

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No matter how you feel,

                                             

do not give up your right

                                                           

and responsibility to vote. 

                                                             

     Today, Tuesday, November 4th, we name a new leader of the free world. 

     And tomorrow, the order of the day –and the many days, and perhaps years, that follow– will be compromise. 

     No American President can ever serve the Presidency as an effective leader without respect for the Presidency from those who are, and who support, the defeated.  Why?  Because leadership requires cooperation and teamwork to achieve objectives that bring benefit to the majority, including the losers. 

     So, today, Election Day, is a day of reckoning, but tomorrow and every day thereafter needs to be a day of compromise and acceptance and moving forward using the strength of the best dreams, goals and resources that remain available. 

     For a future that serves us all, regardless of personal preferences and political alignments, the next four years’ worth of Tomorrows calls for active listening, and patience, and openness, and receptivity from each of us. 

     It requires that we make the most of what we have to work with and believe in, to achieve lasting peace, meaningful progress . . . and abundance of life, health, wealth, and spirit in the next four years, for ourselves and our families. 

     It requires that we each reach agreement with ourselves to pursue these values for our children, for our grandchildren, and for preservation of  balanced life on this fragile planet.     

     May God Bless our new leaders and give them the wisdom, vision, foresight and strength to captain our ship through the storms ahead.  

     No matter how you feel, do not give up your right and responsibility to vote.   Halalpiar 

Note http://blog.igburton.com for my new two-part blog series (Part I tonight and Part II this coming Thursday) on STOP HOLIDAY DRIVING STRESS . . . good stuff for all of us!     

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Imagine being featured performer

inside a shoulder-to-shoulder ring

of twenty or thirty shrinks! 

     Ever get yourself frustrated with a relative, neighbor, friend, co-worker, employee or boss who is just too damn busy to visit, socialize, go to lunch, get coffee before (or a beer after) work,  discuss books, articles, music, film or theatre productions, children or grandchildren, church, doctors, or the circus . . . anything that has nothing to do with work?  

     You know who I’m talking about.  Somebody you’re pretty sure is not on the wittness protection program.  It’s that loner who can’t find (or seem to make) the time for pleasure travel or experiences.  Often, it’s someone who’s rarely in touch with any sporting event or team, hobby, or community organization . . .  and is often distant to her or his own family?  

     Don’t feel rejected.  Odds are it has nothing to do with you. 

     In psychotherapeudic circles (I know, I know, they don’t sound like such great places to be either.  I mean just imagine being featured performer inside a shoulder-to-shoulder ring of twenty or thirty shrinks!  Yikes!  That’s enough to make you crazy even if you weren’t to start with) — anyway, in this psycho-shrink category of diagnostics, particularly as it emerges from Gestalt Therapy, people who create distance with others usually do it unconsciously.  

     By barracading themselves behind desks, office doors, and work schedules, it’s easier to explain their reluctance to get involved with others’ lives, and with themselves.  By consistently saying yes to others’ requests (to the point of his or her own detriment, exhaustion, for example), it’s easier to avoid intimacy (tenderness, empathy and affection, caring) at any level.  There’s always something to keep preoccupied with!  In Transactional Analysis (TA), this kind of activity is referred to as a subconscious “game” called The Harried Executive.

     I get accused of this on occasion, but my work, my writing, is my life . . . and I never avoid contact with those around me, though I will often delay an encounter until I’ve finished the sentence or paragraph I’m working on, and I will often avoid getting into situations that offer no personal reward . . . going to an opera or ballet, for example, because I do not understand or appreciate either (with apologies to my wonderful high school classmate, ballet star, teacher, and ballet aficionado friend Rhodie Jorgenson, whom I greatly admire). 

     The Harried Executive may have once been emotionally traumatized by allowing his or herself to get too close to someone else, and then been stood-up, or jilted, or in worst-case scenerios: cheated, beaten, robbed, or raped. 

     Percolating somewhere down deep in such an individual’s unconcsious mind is the fear of ever getting into that kind of situation again, and the misguided notion that avoidance of all things, people, and experiences that represent any kind of intimacy is the safest route to take.  Folks like this need help, but probably not from you, unless you have a Masters of Social Work.  Free yourself from guilt and worry and get on with your life and career.        

Note http://blog.igburton.com for my new two-part blog series (Part I tonight and Part II this coming Thursday) on STOP HOLIDAY DRIVING STRESS . . . good stuff for all of us!   Halalpiar    

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My punkin’s chunked!

     Nudged by friends, Kathy and I headed off to become part of Delaware history today in witnessing and celebrating the 23rd Annual PUNKIN CHUNKIN World Championship.  [See www.punkinchunkin.com for all the hokey details.]

     People come from virtually every state, and many different countries (including England, Bulgaria, and even California ;<) to see and experience man-made Rube Goldberg-style non-motorized catapult contraptions hurl real pumpkins hundreds of feet up into the air, and as far as nearly a mile across flattened cornfields . . . more impressive than even Reggie Jackson home runs in Octobers past.

     The devices use giant rubberbands, levers, pulleys, swivels, compressed air, heavy people jumping off ladders onto see-saw-style slingers, and virtually every other propulsion scheme known to science and garage inventors.

     Now, we’re not talking about small time events here.  There were approximately 150 venders and a a dozen world-class rides (two of which created instant nausea just to look at).  The schedule featured dozens of quality bands (including The Charlie Daniel’s Band and Randy Owen, Alabama’s lead singer) plus cooking contests, a Miss Punkin Chunkin Pagent, lots of fireworks, and food and drinks galore. 

     My unofficial guess is that there were at least a hundred thousand vehicles at the gourd flinging contests, a three-day weekend phenomenon. 

     Most cars and trucks and SUV’s looked to be filled with people and tailgate picnic paraphernalia (including full-length sofas; wide-screen TV’s; thousand-dollar grills; fully-stocked bars and kitchens on wheels; thousands of RV’s, ATV’s, golfcarts and motorcycles.  “A redneck Woodstock,” someone called it, though I must confess I didn’t see anyone cooking out on upsidedown shopping carts!

     $2 to park and $9 per adult admission probably translates to roughly $30+ average take per vehicle.  Much of the proceeds go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and to agriculture scholarship funds.

     So, good for you, Hal; what’s the point?

     The point is that the only incident we even heard about all day was that security teams reunited a lost three year-old with his parents.  Bridgeville, Deleware, and Delaware State Police were prominently in attendance, and good-naturedly tolerant. 

     The point is that electioneering was parked outside the front gate, and so were people’s economic woes.  My guess is that mainstream media would not have liked seeing so many happy spirited souls just three days before Election Day; it would have flown in the face of the grimacing, suffering images they’re trying so desperately to portray to sell more advertising time and space.

     The point is that the event is so utterly stupid that it’s just plain fun, and a distraction from political bombardments that was more than worthy of the couple of miles of trekking from parking space to the carefully planned pumpkin launch and drop and smash area. 

     The point is it was refreshing to see this piece of Americana alive and well and being enjoyed by people having a good time.  If you’re nearby, try it tomorrow.  If you’re not, it’s really worth planning for next year.  See you there!  Halalpiar    

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