The opposite of evolution is devolution. Merely moving forward in time chronologically doesn’t guarantee higher standards, better performance, or improvement.

Our speech has declined. People support this, claiming that speech must “evolve.” But does evolution include mindless, ubiquitous profanity, unintelligible statements, and confusing grammar? 

The arts haven’t made great strides, and on television and in the theater we see a procession of diluted revivals and low quality spinoffs. Athletes showboat over a tackle when their team is down three touchdowns.

Service levels in most hotels are down, as they are on most airlines, and the latter fly smaller and smaller jets on longer and longer flights to make money despite passenger discomfort. Traffic is terrible in most large cities—incomprehensibly bad in LA— and if you replace every single internal combustion car with an electric car tomorrow, you’d still have the same number of cars on the roads with the same traffic jams!

 Civility is lower than ever, with polarization creating terrible name-calling and an overall casualness, where clerks call customers by their first names and people wear ripped jeans and hoodies to upscale restaurants. There is an entrenched belief that a privileged few in government and in the media somehow have the right to dictate to the rest of us how to live our lives.

And we’re trapped in identity trumping talent, where merit and ability take a back seat to making sure gender, race, and ethnicity are “fairly” represented. (Yet this doesn’t occur in sports, where owners, players, and fans simply want the best talent available to win, no matter who that talent may be.)

Devolution

SHOW NOTES:
•Why do such a staggeringly large percentage fail?
•They don't respond to inquiries when busy.
•They tend to create prices based on wealth of buyer.
•They don't show up, don't return calls, don't finish on time.
•They don't bill in a timely manner, so cash flow is an issue.
•They don't consider repairs and warranties for the buyer.
•They tend to seek perfection rather than success.
•They use shortcuts and blame others when they don't work.
•They aren't proactive, only reactive.
•They act as if their educated, wealthy customers are stupid.
•They don't actively seek referrals.
•They act as if the customer's ideas are absurd.

Other than that, they're run wonderfully and their rate of failure is due to climate change.....

Small Business, Small Minds?

SHOW NOTES:

I don’t want to give this away, suffice it to say it’s about panic vs. calm, and successful marriages vs. rocky ones.

The Bag Lady

SHOW NOTES:

If you want to maximize your business growth, you need to generalize and not specialize. There may be exceptions, but generally, the more potential buyers you have the more business you'll generate.

A content expert knows the "what." It may be insurance, or auto manufacture, or solar panels. You sell insurance to people to need insurance, auto manufacture skills to, well, auto manufacturers, and solar panels to people who desire it, have the capacity for it, and have a roof (or a large field).

But a process expert knows the "how." It may be sales, customer service, decision making, conflict resolution, or negotiating. And these needs, this expertise, is needed cross-industrially and globally. Problem solving, for example, has three components (hear them on the recording) which are immutable, no matter what the circumstances.

These process skills are often called "critical thinking skills," which are not sufficiently taught in schools nor recognized in workplaces.

Hence, my highly successful career, and this podcast.

Process vs Content

SHOW NOTES:

I've been consulting, coaching, advising and otherwise helping people to achieve success, personally and professionally, for over half a century. Those clients include CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, top governmental elected officials, executive directors on nonprofits, solo entrepreneurs, entertainers, athletes, and lawyers, accountants, designers, architects, and a myriad of employees. 
Until the 21st Century kicked in, this was standard work on skills, behaviors, attitudes, and self-confidence. Then things became a bit weird, which was exciting for me, being a resource for people, but scary for them (and, I admit, a bit baffling to me). However, prior to the covid epidemic, it became clear there was a subliminal crisis of confidence brewing which, during and post-covid, burst into the open and became its own pandemic.
Many might say the causes were obvious: conflicting medical opinions, tainted political agendas, paranoid conspiracy theories, and all of this inflamed by social media random misinformation and speculation. Yet as I watched the confusion, uncertainty, and vacillation, I realized the actual causes were an unprecedented feeling of powerlessness, an unsatisfied need to receive some kind of "permission" to act, and a profound loss of self-esteem and self-worth.
"Self-esteem," for simplicity's sake for the moment, is a confidence in one's abilities to achieve desired results, and an ongoing self-respect irrespective of whether the individual is successful. It's not about ongoing "victories" or "wins," but it is about a permanent sense of "worth."
For many people, that has been lost. Like athletes in a "slump" in terms of performance, especially under pressure, people are becoming more afraid, more uncertain, as the turmoil and disruptive nature of our times continue and will not abate.

The Courage of Your Talent

SHOW NOTES:

I heard an "influencer" today on a morning talk show explain that dating, or having any ongoing relationship, is no longer considered favorable. In fact, he pointed out, many people are finding that being single—is "aspirational."

Now, I can understand independence and self-sufficiency, hell, I write about them as positive traits. But to seek to remain unattached to another person as "aspirational"? We all need others. We need companionship, love, solace in defeat, and celebration in victory. Many of us have visited foreign lands, scuba dived, engaged in competitions, faced health issues, suffered trauma. Doing so alone makes defeat into cataclysm and victory into evanescence. 

It's healthy to be able to be effective and happy alone. But I doubt it's healthy to want to achieve that as some aspirational life goal. It takes accountability and sacrifice to be in any kind of relationship. 

Perhaps being alone isn't so much a goal and as escape.

Alone Again, Or Maybe Not

SHOW NOTES:

I am neither aware nor unaware.

Did. you lobby to get her on the board? She'll make an excellent board member. But did you arrange for her appointment. She's a stellar candidate.

Weren't you in charge of this huge problem area? No, I inherited it. But before that you were a top officer of the company. Surely you must have known that the operations were illegal. Under my watch we reduced the impropriety by 41%.

I have not spoken to the man but have made it clear that I would do so if he came to me.

I have not seen the footage in question but I believe, based on what I know is in it, that everyone should see it.

It is not our job to investigate the competency or work of the bridge inspectors, or to tell them where we think the problems may be.

I am not asking you to coach me for free, I am asking for your advice on an issue. 

It depends what "it" is.

I didn't come in here, and I'm not leaving.

Political Bloviation

SHOW NOTES:

We had left Vigil Mass on Saturday night where I helped serve Communion as a Eucharistic Minister. (I’ll be the lector next week.) We drove ten minutes to the restaurant for dinner and immediately heard of the shooting at Brown University. (And as I write this, a similar horror at Bondi Beach in Australia which was aimed at Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah.) 
The streets, the classrooms, public gatherings—none is immune to the violence of the mentally ill, the racist, the anti-Semitic, the terrorists, the disaffected who merely seek to kill. Luigi Mangione, who killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York street, captured on camera, has pleaded not guilty, and some people have raised a fund for his defense. 
Do we kill the school principle if our child has failed a test? Do we murder the coach if our home team is terrible? (Gamblers are currently threatening athletes to underperform which will reward their betting.) Do we kill the event planner if the wedding is not to our liking, or the chef for a bad meal?
In the US, our government representatives are cowardly in not taking action on a bipartisan level to remove the mentally ill from the streets and to enforce stricter gun control laws. (I easily remember all the Representatives and Senators immediately after 9/11 standing on the Capitol steps singing God Bless America together. I drove home cross-country from LA with a client, and we saw cities, bridges, and countrysides adorned with American flags.)
I am not ever again providing funds or voting for anyone of any party who does not make these points a campaign pledge with a plan to implement. 
I know there are some of you who resent even a political taint to what I write here, but this is non-partisan, this is a call for freedom—the freedom from violence. We have a right to conduct productive lives and to live and raise our children in safety. When I was a child, poor and in an inner city, I could walk the streets alone, even at night, without fear and without my parents fearing for me. Early this morning, 15 minutes from Brown where I live, I considered taking my gun to walk the dogs in the dark patches of our own lighted backyard. (I didn’t. But I thought about it.)
Some people object to “thoughts and prayers” as if they are of no value. I disagree. And I offer them to the families, to our communities, to all of us.
Right now, at this moment, that’s all I have. 


That's All I Have

SHOW NOTES:

New Year celebrations date back 4,000 years to ancient Babylon, where the festival of Akitu marked the new year around the spring equinox with religious rituals, debt-paying promises (early resolutions), and kingly renewals. Early civilizations linked it to agricultural cycles, like Egyptians with the Nile's flood. The Roman calendar, shifted to January 1st by Julius Caesar, became the basis for our Gregorian calendar, solidifying the date, though many cultures still celebrate at different times (Chinese New Year, Rosh Hashanah). The Babylonians made promises to their gods during a 12-day Akitu festival (their new year in March) to repay debts and return borrowed items for good fortune, a practice later adopted and adapted by the Romans and evolving into today's personal goal-setting tradition for self-improvement and a fresh start.

New Year's Eve celebrations became huge in Times Square starting in 
1904, when The New York Times hosted a massive fireworks party for its new building, drawing 200,000 people; the iconic ball drop tradition began three years later in 1907, replacing fireworks and cementing the event as a beloved annual spectacle, as reported by The New York Times Company and Times Square. 

Make a single resolution, not scores which will not be realized and lead to disappointment and self-doubt. Start it now, today, not some future date. Don’t regret the past or dread the future. Live for today, every day. You can’t change the past and the future will here before you know it.

And remember most, perhaps, that all of us deal with trauma and pain of varying types. Pain is inevitable in life, but suffering is voluntary.
 
So mourn your loss, endure the pain, but stop suffering and enjoy the wonderful life of existence. It beats the hell out of the alternative.

Happy New Year! (blow a horn)


Happy New Year

SHOW NOTES:

Did people whine as much years ago as they do now?

They won't let me succeed at my job. They won't hire me anywhere else.

Maybe "toxic workplaces" are caused by toxic employees? Maybe terrible bosses are just leaders expecting employees to meet deadlines and fulfill assignments?

The fault is with the "Boomers" or GenX because they took advantage, they led great lives, and left nothing for us! Nothing but a healthier, safer world and the last decade of constantly improved living standards.

I'm not valued! Maybe because you don't create much value and you don't make it visible.

Take some accountability, and stop immersing yourself in the internet for that good old confirmation bias from other people who don't take initiative.

If you're unhappy in your job, change it or leave it. There's plenty of work out there that pays well, isn't threatened by AI, but does require responsibility and ownership.

But just stop whining, stop yelling for your Mama.

It ain't your mother's fault.

Mama!!!

Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth® is a weekly broadcast from “The Rock Star of Consulting,” Alan Weiss, who holds forth with his best (and often most contrarian) ideas about society, culture, business, and personal growth. His 60+ books in 12 languages, and his travels to, and work in, 50 countries contribute to a fascinating and often belief-challenging 20 minutes that might just change your next 20 years.

Devolution

Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

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