Number One

“Number one is a hard time in the making
Number two is the one plane I'm not taking
Number three goes on one knee for a token
Number four is the short straw but it's broken
I'd give my all just to be number one”
—Chaz Jankel, “Number One”

Anyone with success on their minds has, at one point or another, thought (or fantasized) about being “number one:” That top spot in which you are revered and/or respected as a leader in your particular industry. The interesting thing about number one is that of the people that dream about being there, few achieve it.

Take the story of a young Ph.D. graduate of Berkeley: A brilliant young man that any corporate recruiter would offer anything they could to woo the researcher to their firm. In 1963 the firm of choice was the research powerhouse of Bell Labs. Earlier they had invented such things as the transistor, the laser, and some of the most unique and powerful calculators for their time. Certainly this solid state physics researcher would choose this behemoth to embark on what would likely become a brilliant career there. Instead, he took a risk and joined a lesser-known upstart known as Fairchild Semiconductor. Under the tutelage of a famous man by the name of Gordon Moore, the two would join others just five years later to
form Intel.

In 1987 the Berkeley graduate—Andy Grove—would succeed Gordon Moore as CEO of Intel. Instead of using conventional logic in decision making, however, he embarked, once again, on the road less traveled. Anyone who paid any attention to the computer market through the 1990s knows the “Intel Inside” logo. This campaign catapulted name recognition of Intel into a world that had long perceived other hardware manufacturers such as IBM as “movers and shakers” in the industry—even though Intel supplied more than 80 percent of the world’s microprocessors. In significant part to Grove’s conquest to expose the Intel brand to as many households as possible, Intel is a company worth $35 billion USD.

Wharton School of Business, seeing the merit in the success of these traits of unconventional thinking, creativity, and integrity, sought to identify other business leaders for which success manifested and the criteria that played integral roles in their doing so.

1. Create new and profitable ideas. This is the essential first step in the journey. Rarely does a business leader succeed from something that is not profitable. There are rare exceptions (i.e. Mark Schwartz, former K-Mart President, who bankrupted the company then decided to get a “fresh start” by opening a chain of gas station-convenience stores in South Dakota), but don’t

plan on being one.

2. Affect civic, political or some other social change through achievement in the business and/or economic world. There is a quote that a supervisor I once had displayed in his cubicle; the actual quote escaping me, the general idea was that someone truly great in their particular industry revolutionize and change it. This is true from the paradigms that he implemented in his department (which later would help him attain a promotion to operations manager) to the change that happened with Carly Fiorina merging HP with Compaq computer, creating the largest computer company in the world in the process.

3. Create new business opportunities or exploit existing ones more. “Thinking outside the box” means thinking creatively, critically, and paying close attention to the opportunities that exist from moment to moment not only in your immediate environment, but in your particular market or industry.

4. Cause or influence dramatic change in an organization or industry. Carly Fiorina speaks very thoughtfully and significantly about what goes into the process of such change. Deriving context and perspective from diversity and overcoming the destructiveness of change are just two topics that she discusses in the podcast referenced above.

5. Inspire and transform others. The greatest legacies that the most successful industry leaders leave is that which we leave in the inspiration and transformation of others to continue the great change which you have undertaken in the business of your choice.

So, the choice is yours: Take the path well-trodden and reap the easy reward—the “Bell Labs path”—or be the pathfinder and revolutionize ground that few others dare conquer and reap the potentially greater rewards—the “Intel path.”

Of Narcissists and Heiresses

Once upon a time there was an aspiring young man that made a name for himself by serving in the New Mexico legislature in his early 20s. Later, he would serve in the U.S. Army as an officer. He purchased a hotel and formed it into a chain that has become renowned the world round: The Hilton Hotel Corporation. Conrad Nicholson Hilton, Sr. begot Barron Hilton, Barron begot Richard, and Richard begot a girl named Paris.

Once upon a time the young hotel heiress got into trouble for driving while under the influence of alcohol and got her license suspended. Not much longer later she was caught driving—without a license. She would eventually go to jail and serve a few days before being discharged for “undisclosed medical reasons.” This has been disclosed as being anything from a rash to suicidal tendencies. Why discuss Paris Hilton in the context of these writings? Paris Hilton possesses traits that are representative of narcissism.

Pretty much everyone has some narcissistic traits: Conceited, argumentative, selfish, etc; but what is required to make them a part of a disorder is for them to arrange themselves into particular patterns of behavior. Narcissism 101 defines a narcissist as someone who exhibits 5 of the following 9 traits:

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).

2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

3. Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

4. Requires excessive admiration.

5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.

6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.

7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

The narcissist is one who will, generally, be without empathy, compassion, and remorse—typical signs of a psychopath, in fact. Regardless of this correlation between behaviors, narcissists are not necessarily psychopaths. Those with sociopathic/anti-social personality disorders are apt to have an enhanced lack of empathy and less impulse control. In their book Personality Disorders in Modern Life, Theodore Millon, Carrie M. Millon, Sarah Meagher, Seth Grossman, and Rowena Ramnath say of some narcissists that they "incorporate moral values into their exaggerated sense of superiority. Here, moral laxity is seen (by the narcissist) as evidence of inferiority and it is those who are unable to remain morally pure who are looked upon with contempt." Whereas individuals with anti-social or dissocial personality disorders calculate and pre-meditate their actions, narcissists are more ignorant and apathetic of those around them.

What is the best way to deal with a narcissist? Don’t. By their very nature, a narcissists’ self-worth is drawn from their maladaptive behaviors, enablers will nurture these behaviors and thus continue through the cycle of the narcissistic behavior. The value of not associating with this type of person is not being drawn into their reality of a world that revolves around them.

Of Losses, Gains, and Winning

I’ve recently encountered a dilemma. In my apartment complex there are rules regarding what sorts of things can be out on the public areas of the tenets’ balconies. The property manager asked me to remove my grill from this balcony for reasons extending from the terms in my lease agreement. Being the law- and rules-abiding person that I am I promptly removed the grill from the balcony and placed it inside my apartment. In the days following I began to notice that others still had their grills outside their apartments in the same fashion that mine was. Furthermore one of my neighbors had their bicycles in a precarious position that has always been in the way of me, especially when I would be bringing something like grocery bags or a large package up the stairs. To my dismay I perceived this as a loss for myself and a gain for others.

This phenomenon has, in fact, been quantified by psychologists. One person’s loss must be made up by a gain of 2.5 times that loss in order to get over the loss, perceived or real. In other words, people are more displeased by a loss than they are over a comparable gain: In America, at least, we typically need to offset an unexpected loss by a gain of 2.5 times that loss. In my example above I was particularly observant of the plight of those around me after my loss was realized looking to see if the loss was a shared one. I fully expect the enforcement of laws to be fair and equitable in their enforcement. Not seeing this, my perception was that the loss was unbalanced and unfair. Of course, life isn’t fair, but this doesn’t preclude the quantifiable perception of loss.

Take politics, for example. In American politics there are a finite number of ideologies: Conservative, liberal, libertarian, independent, so on and so forth. When their affiliated parties do not enact the laws and policies which they think will improve society frustration is often had. Take the polarizing issues of our day: The War on Terrorism, immigration, abortion—they polarize the American public largely because the politicians are not enacting laws that are congruent with their belief structure and, in their frustration, can allow irrational actions to attack others in differing political affiliations or otherwise do things which tarnish the name and image of their party.

However, every change comes at a price. Improving something for someone will often cause a loss for someone else. Hybrid cars are a big thing right now, allowing for tax credits for those individuals willing and wishing to come up with the tens of thousands of dollars for them. These tax credits, however, come at a price. This “credit” actually becomes a redistribution of taxes in that it needs to be financed through other people being taxed for you to have that credit.

Economists call these “zero-sum games” in which the total net benefit to all of the interacting individuals in the situation adds to zero; each individual only benefits at the expense of others. This is the very nature of tax and economic legislation and, as it turns out, a common theme in our lives, thus the adage “life is not fair,” other people’s gains often come at the expense of our own.

How do we get past this paradigm and make the world a better place? Crafting classic “win-win” scenarios in our interactions with others will shatter this classic paradigm and make things better for everyone else. Win-win games often start with the self-talk phrase “I want to win and I want you to win too.” The easiest and often most effective means of doing this are for you to look at the underlying needs of the situation. By addressing each party’s underlying needs allows you the opportunity to craft solutions acknowledging and valuing those needs rather than denying them. Even when the result isn’t necessarily what everyone would have ideally wanted the process that goes into achieving the result will make each party feel differently about the outcome: Typical results are achieved through simple quantitative processes, such as the zero-sum game; qualitative improvements are made with qualitative improvements in the very process which produces the result.

The changing of this process requires the redirection of your energy. Instead of asking yourself “which is the best solution for me?” replace it with “which is the best solution for you?” Instead of asking yourself “what is my real need here?” ask “what is your real need here?” Instead of making a self-directed value judgment or envisioning a result that you want focus on the value judgment of the other or the envisioning the result of the other person’s desired results.

If you do not know the answers to these questions…perhaps you need to get to know the person better.

One more day!

One more day until the blog is officially back in business. Just got the new computer up and running and still need to get the essentials organized and everything up and running.

Blog Maintenance

I have run into a bit of problems with my computer: Frying a motherboard while recklessly checking on the installation of a card reader. I have ordered a replacement that I expect to have up and running by mid-week. Unfortunately, there will not be extensive posts until then.

I will, however, still try to put something up for Monkey Mondays. I hope.

Hope to be blogging again soon,

Matthew

5 Days of Happiness, Part 5

When the nineteenth century British economist Adam Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations he did so under the auspices that happiness is considered to be the ultimate goal of all economic activity. Greater wealth is not synonymous with increased happiness: I’ve said it before, “money is like oxygen—the more you have of it, the easier it is to breathe.” Through years of evolution of economic thought economics diverged from the study of the mechanics of human happiness and replaced it with those things which were the material requisite to make someone happy. This eventually evolved into the economic concept of utility—“the happiness or satisfaction gained from a good or service.” When choosing between two different things a person is apt to choose the one that maximizes their satisfaction or happiness.

The Greeks had a term Eudemonia: That has been translated into meaning either “happiness” or “human flourishing.” Aristotle knew that Eudemonia was constituted of virtues through the rational activities conducted within a complete life; one of which was friendliness. The “right action” of friendliness is one of the virtues that lead to happiness and, thus, the “highest good.” The by-product of social relationships is our own happiness—not because we do so for our own gain, but because those actions which we partake in are intrinsically good. In other words, in the Aristotelian view happiness is not something that is to be pursued; rather it is something that finds you when you do virtuous things.

Whether or not happiness is something that is meant to be pursued, rather than allowing it to pursue you, is something that you can decide whether or not to take up yourself. The adage “what comes around, goes around” has some meaning to it, however.

Robert Putnam, a political scientist from Harvard University, analyzed the phenomenon of social detachment in his book Bowling Alone. From memberships in various social and civic organizations, to visiting friends and neighbors, to being a part of sports leagues—such as bowling—he illustrates how Americans are only 30-50 percent as connected to one another than we were in the 1950s. Why has this happened? As the individual pursuit of wealth became a higher priority to everyone, we forgot about the emotional attachments that makes the pursuit worthwhile. The sociopolitical climate since the middle of the 20^TH century has been one where apathy of social and moral concerns and the acquisition of wealth have overcome a consciousness of the issues of the larger community and the respect people have for it.

Yes, everyone seems to have an agenda. Some genuinely do it out of a concern for legitimate issues; the remainder of people do it for myriad other reasons. Likewise, some of the issues are genuine and some are not. The analysis of this is outside the scope of this discussion, short of it to be said: Social connectedness has been replaced with social apathy. Respect for thy neighbor has been replaced with apathy for everyone around me but those I favor. The virtues of community and civic pride have been vanishing with a Machiavellian drive for the goal…

…When, in fact, the goal is right under our noses and most are not able or don’t care to fathom it.

5 Days of Happiness, Part 4

The philosopher Voltaire once said “The art of medicine consists of keeping the patient amused while nature heals the disease.” Certainly modern medicine has advanced since the days of Voltaire to the point to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the very act of laughing relaxes us and reduces our exposure to problems associated with high blood pressure, strokes, arthritis, and ulcers. Because research has suggested that distressing emotions such as stress, anger, and depression can lead to heart disease, laughter can help alleviate these emotions and hedge against heart disease.

Furthermore, the benefits of humor reflect in social situations. Researcher Fabio Sala, part of the Hay Group, found that executives who used humor more than their counterparts were perceived better, using humor 17.8 times per hour; whereas it was found that executives who were ranked average used humor 7.5 times per hour. While positive and neutral humor was the most used, some negative humor was used also. Humor can also be seen to have benefits in negotiation situations.

The average child laughs about 300 times per day: How many adults do you know that laugh this much in every 24-hour period? In a work environment that is in constant change for most of us, humor can be wonderful, a force-multiplying phenomena in our work lives. When I worked in the wireless industry as a supervisor/analyst in receivables management we dealt with a high stress load mostly because we handled customers who escalated because they were displeased with their situation, the customer service representative which they were working with, or something else. The team that I was on that dealt with these situations with a humorous approach: While often a cynical one it was a differential that helped us keep our sanity after being constantly abused by irrational customers complaining about some aspect of their wireless service.

Echoes of this can be found in most every workplace environment. A successful leader in any of these environments is able to keep the humor with them while spreading humor with others. Not only will this offer you the opportunity to be held in high regards by your peers and others, it will also help to offer a rounded edge to what could be otherwise stressful situations.

Some people will go through their lives living with the understanding that happiness is the end result when, rather, happiness is the means to the end that you seek. Imagine the man or woman that is constantly, in a Machiavellian sort of way, striving for that little piece of happiness. We sacrifice those things which we have today, here and now, for that piece of a pie that we want to have tomorrow: Expensing the moment for the promise of something tomorrow. Allow happiness to be your method for achieving those things in life you get. Studies have consistently shown that happy people are more apt to be successful. Happiness begets success; success does not necessarily beget happiness.

How do you become happier? Here are a few pointers:

• Learn to balance work and play. Maybe you are a person who lives to work; maybe you’re a person who works to live. Either way, there are activities which we each would describe as work or play. With things in moderation, the successful individual learns to balance work and play. There are caveats and exceptions to this rule; Donald Trump believes that if you are in the right line of work “play” is not necessary
  
  
• You can only spread yourself so thin before you’re no good for yourself or anyone else. Knowing your limits and pushing yourself enough past those limits that you don’t cause damage is integral. Successful people are often integral parts to other people’s lives, organizations and the like: If you commit yourself too much you are risking that you will be able to contribute less to those things and people that you value—and those people and things that value you.
  
  
• Laugh and smile more. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at the world. Remember that it takes 37 muscles to frown and 22 muscles to smile. Smiling is much easier and much more beneficial.
  
  
• Surround yourself with people who are positive. Negative people can’t necessarily bring you down, but having negative influences contribute in your life can only, ultimately cause you to take on those negative aspects of their influence as well. “Birds of a feather flock together.”
  
  
• If you are someone who tends to bottle emotions up, not get things out into the open, avoids issues, or has problems letting your thoughts and feelings be known, learn to practice self-assertion techniques. Sooner or later not asserting yourself will catch up with you and you will be prevented from growth and progress.
  
  
• Learn to relax and cope. While happiness can bring with it traits of self confidence and such, emotions such as panic and despair will not. When things get to be too much: Relax; because a situation can only best you if you allow it to do so.

5 Days of Happiness, Part 3

Esteem is one of those terms whose meaning is not very concrete to most people. It is a term with a definition that can be very relative to each individual. Wikipedia, however, defines esteem as “a favorable appraisal of a person who possesses qualities estimated as of significant value.” To this end it labels two distinct types of esteem: Respect and recognition by others and self-respect.

Think of a person in your life whom you have good faith in as being competent, has integrity, perhaps they have complementary moral values and ideals close to your own, and having your trust. These are all components of a respected individual. Respect is a great thing in that it adds general reliability to social interactions, enriching them and making them more efficient and effective as it allows individuals to work in groups, adding a complementary nature to them. This can only be built by a person partaking in acts that are generally considered good and beneficial to those whom hold the respected person in such high regard. Once these requirements are met respect can be earned.

The benefits of having respect among members of a group or team are force-multiplying—useful for hierarchical and peer relationships in that environments of mutual respect often lead to dramatic increases in progress and productivity, especially when it is recognized by all parties.

By having large social networks a person has a greater opportunity to be recognized for your respectable deeds, integrity, and complementary nature to others. Earning respect with others means building esteem. Being held in high esteem by others fulfills the esteem need set by Maslow…mostly.

The other half of esteem is self-respect. Theologian Abraham Herschel once said “Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” Respecting oneself boils down to accepting oneself: Holding yourself in regards enough that you accept who you are for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Self-respect is not necessarily contingent on success, because life will bring failures with it. Research conducted by Dr. Ellen J. Langer, Judith White, and Johnny Walsch, of Harvard University suggests that self-respect allows people the advantages of being less prone to blame, guilt, regret, lies, secrets and stress.

When I was younger my family moved more than most: Three different towns by the time I graduated high school. In the third grade I was held in high regards by my peers, was accomplished, and felt like I was on top of the world. Then my family moved. Again, I made the investment and gained much of what I had back—probably more; just in a different place. By the time we made the next move two grades later I wasn’t so apt to make the investment: Sooner or later it would all end up the same. This was the time in my life, however, where I entered the “trying too hard” phase. I answered every question, laughed a bit too much perhaps, and went that extra mile. Evidently this did not bode well with my peers in this new place. My confidence decreased, my self-esteem was at an all-time low. What was happening inside my head started dictating what was happening in my world.

It wasn’t until I dug deep inside, found my core competencies as an individual, and gained self-esteem from them by expressing myself through various outlets in which I could derive self-worth. The better I felt about myself, the better my world became: The more those around me began to hold me in higher regards.

The truest happiness comes from inside ourselves: The happier we are, the more the world around us notices it. Happiness is not just the feeling that we want to achieve (at least in a periodic basis), but it is something that begets success.

Just a Note

I'm planning on finalizing the social bookmarking code by next week. Right now, I am thinking about only doing so for three to five social bookmarking sites.

If you have a favorite or a suggestion, please leave a comment!

5 Days of Happiness, Part 2

Imagine an individual that you admire, respect, and look up to. Likely, when you are faced with a decision you reference this person. Ask yourself: Are they a sociable figure? Are they someone that gets along well with other people? If you get along well with this person chances are that they get along well with other people. Generally, people who are well socially adjusted seek to be an active part of a community in some capacity. They seek to like people and to be liked by them.

After the priorities of “house and health” are met, we seek to belong to a group. Some people can make their way through a room effortlessly socializing with each and every person in the room. Some people struggle with other people. Some people choose to avoid other people for any number of reasons, cynicism among them.

Personality theorist Erik Erikson posed that people go through varying stages throughout their life. In our childhood we go through stages such as the development of trust, seeking autonomy, finding the initiative, striving for becoming industrious, and finding our identity in adolescence. As young adults we are each faced with the struggle between intimacy and isolation: After establishing a stable identity a person develops the need to seek out intimacy in their life. Sharing deeper friendships or meaningful love with others are the evolution of having found your identity—in the sense that you want to share with this with others to shared with you via shared and contrasting experiences. Researchers have found that, in fact, three out of every four college-age men and women rank a good marriage and family life as important goals to attain throughout their adulthood. This need for intimacy is often found to be at odds with isolation in that often people can fail to make meaningful and deep relationships instead forming several unfulfilling, superficial relationships leading an individual to feel alone and uncared for in life, setting the stage for later difficulties in life.

Developing social networks—regardless of their mechanics—is important to everyone and anyone’s happiness. Only through prioritizing and meeting the social need can someone seek to fulfill the need to feel respected and develop a healthy amount of esteem.

The easiest way to develop those social connections I like to compare to melting an ice cube: All other things being equal, an ice cube that is a simple block of ice will melt more slowly than one that is of the same mass but in the form factor of being a sheet; the ice that was a sheet had more surface area to increase the speed with which it melted. Just like the ice cube increasing its surface area, the more a person “increases their surface area” to the rest of the world, the more opportunity they have to make friends. Spend more time doing more things in more social situations.

However, you don’t necessarily wish to hang out in places with people who aren’t necessarily sharing the same ideals, morals, and belief structure as you. Then again, you can spend your time in social situations with people that, as a group, share the same (or similar) ideals as you...or you can spend time in social situations and groups that are things you aspire to. Realistically the best way to go would be a combination of the later two—exposing yourself to social groups that share your ideals as well as those which you aspire to.

When determining which social groups you’d like to belong to keep in mind religious, political, volunteer, humanitarian, and civic organizations. I have a good friend that has chosen to immerse herself in such organizations and, to my observations she is all that more respected and enriched because of it—and she has enriched those around her directly and indirectly.

5 Days of Happiness, Part 1

Anyone who reads this blog at length probably understands that part of my message that I illustrate and narrate with it is to pursuit of success. A component of success that can be overlooked by the overzealous, but is a critical component in the truest of successes is that of happiness. The most successful men and women derive happiness and a sense of self-worth from those things that also bring them enough wealth to make them comfortable.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil:” 1 Timothy 6:10. The acquisition of money and wealth should not be what one loves, for that can lead to greed: Regardless of what Gordon Gecko says, Greed is not good. Money is a tool that should be used for the achieving self-actualization. Dr. Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, proposed a theory that contended that as people meet their “basic needs,” they seek to satisfy successively “higher needs.”

1. Physiological Needs: The essentials—food, water, sleep, etc. Anything that aids in your body continuing to breathe and move forward from day to day.

2. Safety Needs: Security, employment, and generally anything that offers you the sense of feeling safe and secure.

3. Social Needs: Everyone needs a sense of belonging—whether to another person, a family, a friend, or an organization—everyone needs to feel like they are part of the larger community.

4. Esteem Needs: Confidence, respect, achievement—When you feel appreciated for those things that you have defined as adding to your self-worth, you are well on your way to achieving the esteem need.

5. Self Actualization: The pinnacle of the hierarchy allows a person to achieve great things.

Dr. Maslow studied individuals that made profound marks on history (ala Albert Einstein) instead of those individuals that had a tendency to be maladapted and a burden on society (“The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”). The first 4 needs are deficiency needs in that they are a priority while—and only while—an individual is on that level. For example, let’s say you are doing great in your life: You are an active member of your community, respected by your peers, and have a family with a house and a white picket fence. All of the sudden this changes when you lose your job. Instead of the person that you were, having met your physiological, safety, social, and esteem needs and well on your way to becoming self-actualized, you are now forced to look for new employment. You might have to worry about keeping the roof over your head and food on your table; these needs that were once far away from being your worries and priorities are now forefront on your radar. As you move up the hierarchy the needs that have been met on one level become less of a priority that what is on your current level of the hierarchy: As the priorities are met on one level, you begin to work towards meeting the priorities on the next level.

A staff sergeant that I once worked with had a view of money that I reference to this day: “Money is like oxygen—the more you have of it, the easier it is to breathe.” Money is not the goal to have for someone who seeks success; rather it is the tool for achieving it. Money helps to meet physiological and safety needs, freeing up your time and other resources towards the priorities of social and esteem needs, on your way to self actualization.

Monkey Mondays: Summing Monkeys

"[Monkeys] can accurately assess which of two behaviours is more likely to bring them a reward by summing together a series of probabilistic clues. And their reasoning is reflected in the firing rate of individual neurons in their brain."

Full Article at New Scientist

Weekend Funnies: Chad Vader Season 1

I recently found this stumbling my way around the Internet. I laughed my butt off. I hope you enjoy, too.

Season 1:

Episode 1


Episode 2


Episode 3


Episode 4


Episode 5


Episode 6


Episode 7


Episode 8

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in…Basic Training, Part 2

Basic Training has historically been a paradigm-shifting, life-changing experience that makes fighters out of people and cultivates the leadership ability within those fighters. Countless leaders throughout history came from the ranks of the military.

I am a man of logic, rational and linear thinking: I take pieces of evidence, investigate, analyze and process, and draw conclusions, insights, and make relationships between varying pieces of data. In this case the evidence is clear: Those things taught throughout military institutions worldwide are a strong basis and foundation for any leader to have. I like to half-jokingly quip that I was the only enlisted soldier in the Army training to become a General. Getting my hands on any information I could from all echelons of knowledge in the armed forces, I internalized it and found ways to enrich my experiences alongside other great passions of mine.

To that end the following are 5 traits that myself and many others have learned throughout Basic Training:

1. Always be prepared: Preparation is the key—whether that means having the right physical tools of the job or the mental preparation for taking on the next mountain in your path, preparation is paramount to the determination of success or failure. Good preparation means having a deep and broad understanding of that which you are about to embark on. Proper preparation allows you to know what your goal is, which result you desire, and how best to adapt to circumstances that are bound to change along the way.

2. Working as a team: Organizations exist to undertake those missions and see through those visions which are too large for individuals to take on. The grandest of missions call for teams to take them on: Whether that means a partnership or a multi-national corporation, working alongside like-minded complementary individuals allows for more to be accomplished. In Basic Training one of the first things that are learned is how to interact like a team: Drill and ceremony. Marching as a team binds a unit together in such a way that actions and intent become uniform, functional, and complement one another towards a unified goal.

3. Conquering personal fears: When someone enlists or is commissioned in the military they are about to start something that is very likely unknown and very foreign to them. I know it was for me. Basic Training forces you to confront many personal fears, especially fear of the unknown. Confronting fears makes you step outside your comfort zone, adapt, and increase the size of that comfort zone. This not only changes how you view the world, it also changes what you can do as a part of it.

4. Plan, prepare, execute: This seemingly simple phrase embodies a lot about what makes the military great in relation to what it means to leadership. Few successes were ever had without a plan. No meaningful success was ever accomplished without proper preparation. No success was ever had without execution. In their book, “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done,” authors Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck pose that “the biggest obstacle to success is the absence of execution.” Indeed, in my experience success has greatly hinged on the ability to execute and the subsequent follow-up.

5. Physical and mental fitness begets success: The biochemistry of a physically fit individual is important to sustain and grow mental fitness within the individual. People who are complacent and idle in their spare time find that their lethargy grows until such time that it consumes and becomes apathy. In Basic Training a day does not go by without physical and mental conditioning taking place. You will find this trait in many great leaders as well. Take a little time each day for physical exercise and something to test your mental prowess: You will find that it is beneficial.

Submit to your favorite social bookmarking site!

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in…Basic Training, Part 1

A conversation I had the other day reminded me of something that my drill sergeants would occasionally tell us in Basic Training: If you want to succeed in your military career, do those things which are being taught to you here.

For the uninitiated: Basic Combat Training is the Initial Entrance Training that every enlisted soldier, sailor, airmen and marine entering service is required to go through in the United States and other militaries around the world. It is a process that breaks down portions of a recruit’s personality removing traits that are not constructive to being part of a force entrusted with securing the peace of a freedom-loving nation and building that personality back up into one that prepares a full-fledged combat-ready soldier, sailor, airman or marine to serve.

In his book The Ultimate Basic Training Guidebook, Sergeant Michael Volkin outlines traits that a new recruit should have going into Basic Training:

1. Patience: Pressure is a first-order force to an individual in Basic Training. Pressure from drill sergeants and other cadre, pressure from fellow recruits, and pressure from yourself to name just a few. Just like in the business environment, everyone has a shared purpose: Whether that is to see the business go forward or to learn basic rifle marksmanship, patience is paramount in ensuring that you don’t lose your temper and detract from the necessary goals being accomplished.

2. Stamina: Basic Training time is longer than usual. Time passes by at a gruesomely slow pace throughout the days, weeks, and months of this Initial Entrance Training. My Basic Training Company had 180 graduating individuals after about a handful dropped out; my platoon had 60 soldiers, my squad had 16 troops, my room had 8: After a few weeks you’ve gone through the “who are you, where do you come from,” so on and so forth, and informed everyone about yourself. From there stamina is necessary to make it through the long periods of waiting (“hurry up and wait” was invented by the military) to the stamina necessary to endure the physical and psychological conditions of the entire experience. Methods of coping with the tension are necessary to help you make it through.

3. Honesty: It is the best policy. People lie to hide things or distort situations to make them seem better to others, themselves, or both. Relationships built around honesty are the best and the strongest over time—especially when it comes to your battle buddies in basic training. Furthermore, being caught in a lie by a drill sergeant will only go to degrade any confidence your leaders have in you. Honesty is absolutely the best policy and the only policy.

4. Submissiveness: Leaders need to learn how to follow as much as they need to be able to lead. Basic Training has no room for recruits with egos and entrenched pride. As it is in life as in Basic Training, if you are far too stubborn with your ego and pride someone else—in the case of Basic Training this means a drill sergeant—will do it for you.

5. Generosity: In Basic Training you will not succeed without some help from your battle buddies. In life you will not succeed without some help from your friends, your colleagues and others in your life. It is a principle that has existed in texts from multiple sources from multiple perspectives throughout all of recorded history: What comes around goes around.

In the next post in this set I’ll go over those pieces of wisdom-for-success that are learned through the experience in Basic Training.

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Murphy’s Laws of Combat, Part 2

Murphy’s Laws of Combat, Part 2

· Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.

I’ve already mentioned “don’t attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance instead.” However, in those cases when someone wishes to vindictively do you harm you’d be best not to surmise their retreat as a retreat: Just a regroup.

· If at first you don't succeed call in an air-strike.

I have a saying that I use when problem-solving: Try graceful, intelligent, creative tactics first…but if that doesn’t work use the brute force approach.

· Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.

This is a tricky one. When I first joined the military I served as a combat engineer: Trained in demolitions, minefields, other combat obstacles, it was instilled in us that we needed to be detail-oriented in things to the letter. When I was in personnel administration this notion was reinforced doubly. However, when I was in recruiting…I was trained to think in exceptions: Ninety-five percent of the rules were flexible and had exceptions; there were only a select few that couldn’t be bent.

· Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the colonel's HQ.

Ever plan something within the confines of your own environment, but when you take it to someone else (such as your boss) for approval it fails? No plan survives combat—or the “real world—“ intact.

· The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.

You could be doing everything perfect all the time, but that one time you make a mistake—bet your hind quarters that someone is watching.

· One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.

Obstacles stack up quickly. Don’t “bite off more than you can chew.”

· A clean (and dry) set of BDUs is a magnet for mud and rain.

BDUs, or the Battle Dress Uniform (since replaced with a newer acronym for the Army and Marine’s digital camouflage uniform), is the standard uniform that you see anyone in the military wearing in the field. Few things—if anything—survive the real world intact.

· Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can't hit the broad side of a barn.

Isn’t this the truth. It’s like crackers: When you have one can of soup around, you have plenty of crackers, but the reciprocal—plenty of soup by few crackers—also tends to be true.

· The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.

Value and utility—usefulness—works the same way throughout the entire chain of manufacture to your hands: The more something is worth to you the greater ends you’ll go to fix it not only because it means that much to you, it’s because that’s simply what it takes to get it repaired.

· Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

It is difficult to learn from books what good old-fashioned experience, “trial by fire” can offer you. Experience teaches you how not to panic. Experience teaches you the full depth and breadth of the situational dynamics. Unfortunately, you have to experience it in order to get it.

· Interchangeable parts aren't.

I grew up in a family where my great grandfather was a top-notch automobile mechanic, as is my grandfather, my father, and my brother. Though I don’t proclaim to be one, I can do many of the basic things and have a fundamental understanding of how the combustion engine works from combustion to drive train and exhaust. What I didn’t learn in my youth, however, was what the Army taught me: Hundreds of different people will be able to offer thousands of different solutions to mechanical problems. I’ve seen Army mechanics need to completely undo something that someone else before them engineered in order to properly fix the piece of equipment. Be ready to adapt, because no one else is going to adapt for you.

· No matter which way you have to march, it is always uphill.

Nothing good comes without some trials and tribulations. Life often will force you to march uphill…both ways.

· If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove anything.

People will often look for data in a given situation that they are searching for…in other words, inquiries can become self-fulfilling prophecies in the sense that an individual will put a bias on the information that they are seeking in order to prove the point they want to make.

· For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism (especially in boot camp).

No matter what you do, someone will have a criticism for it that is opposite and equal to the value that you place in your action. Don’t allow criticism to hold you back from what you want to do or take away from the self-worth you derive from doing it.

· The one item you need is always in short supply.

Isn’t this the very definition of modern economics?

· The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.

There is an old saying that we are never put into a situation that we are not meant to be able to handle. Even if we are faring our way through poor weather, we are probably meant to learn something from it.

· The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator.

This reminds me very much of what we used to call the “Engineer’s Axiom:” Your IQ should be 10 percent higher than that piece of equipment which you are trying to operate. Otherwise you’re likely to run into exactly what the individual finding them in the above situation will find themselves.

· Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.

A trap that a manager or a leader often runs into is the trap of unwillingness to delegate. Many of these types of people have been engrained with the belief that they can do things better than someone else. However, this does not allow for the opportunity to learn, to train, and to coach. Artillery that falls short, airstrikes that overshoot, and support that fails to properly hit the mark can be overcome with enough preparation of those people that are required to see to these sorts of tasks.

· When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones are always illegible.

The amount that a person is prone to panic is often directly proportional to the gravity of the situation: Panic does strange things to a person…including not allowing them to write legibly, for instance.

· Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA.

I wish I could find text of the original study, but I recall hearing once of such a study in which World War II and subsequent conflicts were studied and it was shown that, of every 10 people, 7 were there to die, 2 were there to reload for the 10^TH individual, and that last person—the 10^TH individual—was there to be the warrior. Although valor and glory are two things that make great men and women greater, recall that discretion is part of the valor equation: Pick your battles and remember that many, many Congressional Medals of Honor are awarded posthumously.

· The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what they want, but they know for certain what they don’t want.

A “glimmering generality” is that people will have the tendency to criticize about what they don’t want, but won’t necessarily know what they want until such time that they see it.

· To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.

Context is extremely important when looking at any situation.

· The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.

The M60 7.62mmGPMG, General Purpose Machine Gun, was employed on a bipod with an effective range of 500 meters or on a tripod with an effective range 1,100 meters. It also was used on vehicles and helicopters in a defensive role. It was gas operated, air cooled and belt fed, with a quick-change barrel to help reduce overheating during a firefight. It has a practical rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute (550 rounds per minute max): Truly a magnificent weapon, a great tool that could mean life or death for the group of soldiers using it. Entropy is the natural process in which things break down unless we put effort into keeping them useful.

· The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else.

Jump on your opportunities quickly, or else they’ll go somewhere else.

· When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to attack. When you are low on supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.

Always be prepared for the enemy because you can bet that they will always be prepared for you.

· The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Congressional Medal Of Honor.

…Because new, less experienced individuals often have more boldness than their war-hardened, veteran counterparts they are willing to do those things which others aren’t to be awarded those recognitions that others aren’t. Entropy not only makes those things in our lives less useful, they can make us less useful as well.

· A Purple Heart just goes to prove that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.

Success is when preparation meets opportunity. That bears repeating: When preparation meets opportunity. Sometimes this is just a series of factors that happen to fall into place just right, but oftentimes we can do things like decreasing the risk factors involved with our participation in the situation or we can increase our preparation of ourselves and our teams.

· Murphy was a grunt.

I quickly became aware of a practice by officers that I revered to go to the less-ranking troops in an area of operations—junior non-commissioned officers and below—and ask them of their opinions of what was going on. A former non-commissioned officer in-charge that I had the honor of serving under once remarked of a major general that would often approach him for his opinion about the current events within his command.

Experience gains breadth of perspective while knowledge increases depth of perspective. The higher up a chain of command a person goes, the more their perspective changes from a details-of-the-tactics type to a strategic style. If the non-commissioned officer (sergeants) are the daily supervisors of the Army and the commissioned officers manage the resources of it, the privates and specialists are the arms, legs, and hands of it: Those that do the daily grind of the businesses in which we work. There is a good chance that these individuals might have a perspective that is different from our own and, quite possibly, potentially useful to yours.

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