Years ago, while living downtown in Chicago, I got one of those white noise makers that you can set to “waterfall” or “river” or “rain forest” and have shut off automatically after 90 minutes. I bought it because I was interested in drowning out my usual nighttime sounds, which included “city bus,” “screaming crotch rocket” (SFW), and “drunk Wiener Circle crowd.” (NSFW)

The thing was a piece of shit, and I mean that in every possible way: it was poorly constructed. The volume wasn’t loud enough to drown out the city. And the sounds were somehow more annoying than what I had been listening to before.

Fast forward to last month. I was at a resort in Mexico, sitting there, listening to the sounds of a small water fall in a tropical wood—sounds that might as well have been the same ones that played through my old white noise maker—yet the effect now was transformative.

Because the body is smart. It knows the difference between the Real Stuff and the Fake Crap.

Your brain, however, is not so smart. It allows itself to get fooled, even going so far as to reject reality reality in favor of artificially sweetened reality.

When this happens, a part of you goes into revolt. Your brain ignores the ruse, but your body sees it and hates you for it.

Your job starts to suck. Your attitude suffers. You stop catching “lucky breaks.” Your world slowly starts to turn to crud.

So how do you reinject reality reality back into your life? Start small:

1. Go find a patch of grass and sit down on it. Get your pants dirty.
2. Park far away and walk. Especially if it’s raining.
3. Come summer, turn off the A/C and open the window. Screw your hair.
4. In winter, go outside despite the cold.
5. Take a different route to work. Part of what I loved about the jungle was its surprising unpredictability. You can simulate that sense of wonder by breaking your most ingrained routines and forcing yourself to pay attention to your world.
6. Acting plastic to survive at work? Try being yourself instead. Hey: if it’s good enough advice for a high school teen, then it’s good enough for a mature more aged adult.
7. Buy some seeds, grow a plant. I grew a jalepeno last year, courtesy of Greenleaf Book Group. It felt great.

I know this is just a start. What am I missing?

It’s just so damn easy to quit, isn’t it.

Math problem’s too tough? Throw in the towel, call a tutor.

Relationship troubles? Screw the conversation, get a therapist.

Boss who’s a pain? Quit.

Hell, we even quit when things are good:

Comfy job? Hit the market and look for a “better” one with more challenge.

Building a nice little company? Flip it to a bigger fish for some coin.

Got into a good grad school? Defer for a year while you think about things.

We have Mastered the Art of Selling Out.

When did this start, I wonder? How did we turn into such a bunch of weasely, sniveling, fearful little snits who can’t see anything to completion?

This is America, isn’t it? The country that won its freedom from the greatest naval power in the world with a rag tag army of shoeless misfits? That kicked Hitler’s ass in WWII? That put a man on the moon and invented the pop tart (from what I understand)?

Whoever cut off Uncle Sam’s balls and replaced them with the cotton puffs, ha ha, very funny. Now fire up the smelters and get the brass molds ready, ‘cuz it’s time to get back to work.

Possibly the most important thing I write about in Super Staying Power is how (and why) employees get frustrated and quit before they truly understand what it takes to reach the next level. They think that “doing good work” is the pinnacle of work, when in reality, functional excellence is only 1/4 of what they need to do to achieve their goals.

The rest of their job includes figuring out how to handle the politics, ambiguity, and pressure of management.

Too many people don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to figure out the full story, let alone work through it. They just want to wrap themselves up in a security blanket of, “I did my job, now give me a promotion! Or else I’ll quit!”

Here’s a tip: When the going gets tough, the tough gets curious. The tough says, “lemme figure this one out for myself,” “Hmmm… lemme think about that,” and—my favorite—”I refuse to quit.”

In business, “quitting” no longer means telling your boss to shove it. Quitting has evolved. Now it’s polished. It’s “selling out.” For instance, these are all forms of quitting:

1. Quitting a manager who you don’t respect… despite never have gotten to know the manager or the pressures s/he’s under.
2. Hiring a consultant to tell you how to do your job without first spending months struggling through it yourself.
3. Demanding a committee be set up to represent employees’ gripes to management without ever having called management to see if they’d listen.
4. Firing the underlings of a chronically underperforming leader.

Make no mistake: each of these actions is a form of selling out.

I want you to succeed.

To do that, you’ll have to rise above our sellout society… and not quit.

It seems that everywhere you turn, someone today is encouraging you to be indispensable.

Universities.

Marketing guys.

Newspapers.

People I don’t even know.

Which is great, but be careful: there is an inherent arrogance to the concept of indispensability that will get you into trouble if you don’t watch it. Thoughtless adoption of “Yes, I’m indispensable!” may get people to do small, good deeds, but it quickly unravels into, “WTF, why is everyone pushing me around? I’m indispensable, dammit!” when the anticipated rewards don’t manifest.

So let’s be totally, brutally, unequivocally clear: you are not important enough to be indispensable.

You know that linchpin, that keeps the wheel from flying off? It’s a popular metaphor right now, but for the wrong thing. Linchpins cost a fraction of a cent and are manufactured by the millions. Linchpins are the ultimate in dispensability: important yet replaceable. Which is exactly how we should view ourselves.

Be great, be helpful, do what’s right. And, expect to get stepped on. Because you will. Why? Because you are dispensable. Remember that, stay humble, and whatever happens, let it slide.

Here’s a quick story to illustrate how the implied arrogance of indispensability corrodes the concept from the inside out:

There was once a prince who was going to see a neighboring king to ask for the king’s daughter’s hand in marriage. On his journey, his heart, brain, lungs, and tongue got to talking about who among them was most important:

Lungs: I’m vital to the flow of oxygen!
Heart: Big deal. Without me pumping, that oxygen doesn’t get anywhere. Besides, people can live without a lung. If I go…
Brain: Please. If anyone’s indispensable, it’s me. I control everything!
Heart: I dunno… people can live a pretty long time in a coma.
Lungs: Well, I don’t see—
Tongue (cutting in): Hey, guys, I think I’m the most indispensable of all of us.
Brain, Heart, Lungs (all together): HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

The tongue was hurt. He had been taught that he was indispensable—a small, yet integral part of the organism, and he didn’t take too kindly to the others’ laughter. I’ll show them, he thought.

So the next day, when the prince had his audience with the neighboring king, the tongue flexed its muscle, and spat out, “Your highness, I have bedded your daughter and demand triple the promised dowry if you expect me to marry her.”

Just before the prince was executed, the tongue said to his neighbors, “I bet you’ll agree now I’m pretty darn indispensable!”

Get it?

Indispensability as an idea: good.

Indispensability as a sustainable, practical tool to drive human behavior, given the realities of human nature? Not so much.

The Romans liked to remind their generals, “Memento mori.”

Me? I prefer to keep it simple: Get over yourself.

You’ve heard this a million times, but probably not like this: If you have something important to say, don’t lecture me, here’s why:

OK?

Can you imagine if the Bible had been written in bullet points? Or if the Gettysburg Address had been delivered as a Powerpoint presentation?

As an undergrad at Wharton, I once got a B on a paper with the note, “Very well written!” I asked my prof about that. She said that in business, people don’t want to read creative writing. They want the facts. Lots of bullets.

I said that sounded like a load of garbage and asked her if she remembered my paper, which she did, including many details. She smiled as she fed my information back to me. Then I asked her if she could recall as much detail from someone else’s paper.

She couldn’t.

In the end, I got a B+ and a powerful life lesson:

Don’t take communication advice from a management professor.

Me, I follow the rules of creative writing:

• Open with a hook—make me care. Give me a character I can relate to, or information that I can relate back to me.
• Set up the conflict. I do this two ways: first, I use language and imagery that evoke an emotional response. Second, I tell you right up front what the end game is going to be. (This is called “Not burying the lead.”) I’m reading the Harry Potter books to Elle. She knows Harry lives—there are 5 more books!—yet she’s riveted and constantly asking me if he’ll be OK. Knowing the ending doesn’t make it boring, it creates tension: how are we going to get from here to there?!
• Avoid cliches as much as possible, as they evoke no emotional response.
• Not every story has a happy ending. the biggest challenge I face sometimes is letting the message be what it needs to be.
• Close with a call to action.

Voila.

Now go tell someone something important!

It may not be appropriate to thank a reviewer for positive statements, but I do think it is appropriate to thank someone for investing time in exploring something I’ve created, and for sharing their resultant impressions with others in an intelligent, helpful way.

Especially when buried in the review is a line that describes my philosophy better than I describe it myself.

So thank you, Ed Brill. Ed is a blogger, IBMer, and writer for the Trib Local, who did just that. He took How to Self-Destruct on an overseas trip and devoted a few hours of the flight to it. He wrote about his experience, and in so doing, gave me a crystal clear idea of the value inherent in that book… which I have been unable to articulate for two years.

And in so doing, Ed has actually made the body of work better. The book will remain as is, but the accompanying presentations and workbook can all be updated.

Life in perpetual beta.

Here is Ed’s review.

And here is the line from Ed’s piece that really resonated with me: “In his books, blogs, public speaking, and consulting, Jason sets out one fundamental premise — if you learn how to take risk, you will win.”

Yep. That’s right.

“Fail spectacularly,” “live your story,” “security is an illusion,” “go for it,” “passion over balance…” I exist to create content that encourages purposeful action and—just as Ed says—risk taking. Appropriate risk taking.

Thanks, Ed. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Dear Senator Bunning,

I think the idea of paying for basic services in this country is a wonderful idea.

Truly novel.

And I think I understand your logic in picking this particular piece of legislation to make your stand, that being: if we’re not willing to pay for it when it’s important and there are zero political points to score—this is truly a helpful bill designed to help people in precisely the way the government is designed to help people—then what chance do we have when talking about the frivolous stuff?

Personally, I think you’re stark raving ass hole for putting your foot down on a bill that continues extended COBRA benefits to the unemployed, but being an ass hole is your prerogative.

Which is why my problem is with your 99 peers.

Y’all know how this game works, right? So what the hell happened, senators? Did you think this guy was bluffing?

Has it been that long since someone took a stand on something that you literally forgot how to stop the gamesmanship and actually get something done?

Over the past decade, you have green-lighted a trillion dollars—let me write that out for you: 1,000,000,000,000 dollars for two unwinable wars and countless domestic services that are about as useful as abstinence training for hormone-addled teenagers.

Including, amongst other things, abstinence training for hormone-addled teenagers.

You couldn’t find $10 billion to pay for this one?

No, of course you couldn’t. Because our nation hasn’t had its own pot to piss in for decades.

Which brings me back to Senator Bunning.

You knew, Senator, that asking the Senate to “pay for” this bill was a joke from the start: how can a government $10 trillion in debt “pay for” anything, except through smoke and mirrors?

Yet you did it anyway.

Which meant 2,000 workers were furloughed while all y’all figured this out. The unemployed’s benefits were cut. There was more pain. Unnecessarily pain.

Look, I work with talent for a living. And aren’t there some who’d truly benefit from a financial 2×4 upside the head.

But those aren’t the people whose faces you just kicked in.

Beating up on the downtrodden?

That’s dirty.

Pretending like it’s someone else’s fault for skipping out on the bill when you know damn well not a one of you has a penny in your pocket?

Scummy.

In an F. Scott Fitzgerald life of privileged debauchery sort of way.

What happened in the Senate this week wasn’t political hardball. It was a travesty.

By now, you probably know that I like situations where there is a risk of spectacular failure. Success is never guaranteed, so if you’re going for it, then you’re also opening yourself up to potentially bombing it big time.

But let’s be totally and completely clear on one point: spectacular failure actually requires a lot of work.

It does not start with you sticking your fingers in your ears, saying, “LA LA LA LA LA… I am not listening to you… This is who I am, take it or leave it…. LA LA LA LA LA.”

It never starts there. But it definitely ends there.

After a lot of listening, changing, trying, and failing.

And here, I’m talking the kind of failure that cause scar tissue. Deep, nasty, bruising, ego-shattering, lose-faith-in-humanity scar tissue.

These failures are tests, not setbacks. They damage they do does not get better on its own after a few hours. Your sweetheart cannot soothe your soul with a cup of hot chocolate. Nothing—not food, not sleep, not sex—helps. These are failures that make jokes about “keeping away from sharp objects” not funny.

Scar tissue.

By the time you are ready to risk “spectacular failure,” it’s almost guaranteed that you cannot achieve it; you’re so battered that if you’re still standing at all, it means there’s nothing left on God’s green earth to stop you… save that one obstacle you have left to conquer.

Allow me to illustrate:

This doofus is not failing spectacularly; he just sucks:

Clowns like this go around making jackasses of themselves, but there’s no real investment. They tune out the world’s feedback because they think they’re misunderstood and everyone else is jealous.

Not so much.

Guys like this aren’t fails, they’re punchlines. For them, the real failure comes in a few years, when they realize they’ve wasted their time and can’t get it back. That’s when the pain sets in.

Meanwhile, this woman did fail spectacularly. She worked her ass off to become the best skater in the world, went head to head with her arch-nemesis at the Olympics, and got blown out of the water. By her nemesis.

I’ll bet it’ll be a long while before Mao Asada looks at her silver Olympic hardware and sees anything other than “first loser.” Which is a shame—she’s unbelievable. But when you go all in on your goals as she did, you take no solace from second place.

But one day, in her mind, she’ll decide to go for it again. She’ll tune out the world, ignore the media scrutiny, and focus totally on her craft. She’ll once again risk spectacular failure… in order to go for gold. And if someone says, “I don’t think you should,” she’ll respond:

“This is who I am, take it or leave it.”

See the difference?

None of us will always be on top. One way or another, we’ll all develop scar tissue.

The question is, will you also have some successes to show for it?

Scene: A Chicago intersection during the morning rush hour. There is a “white border optional” stop sign there.

Action:

I’m the second car back from the intersection, Traffic is moving way too slow. Drivers are sitting there, waving each other on, doing the “now that I’m completely stopped, this strange and rare sensation of not moving has rendered me temporarily unable to remember how to use the skinny pedal that makes me go” thing.

Finally, a driver snaps out of it. Someone goes.

The truck in front of me goes. No, hang on, not the truck. The car behind the car that just went runs the stop sign—white border optional!—and cuts the truck off. Now the truck. And now another other car. Now me. No, hang on, not me. The car behind the car that just went after the truck also runs the stop sign and cuts me off. Now me. No, hang on, a bicycle is flying through the intersection, also about to cut me off. The biker stops in the middle of the intersection and waves me on, annoyed. How silly of me. OK, now me. No, hang on, a pedestrian has taken advantage of the situation and jumped in front of my turning car.

What a dickhead.

Dickhead pedestrian and I start waving each other on, each of us clearly annoyed with the other.

Wait a minute.

That’s not “a dickhead pedestrian,” that’s my friend Tom! (With a beard—when did that happen?!)

I smile. My annoyance evaporates. Instantly. At the same time, Tom discovers that the car in front of him isn’t being driven by some dickhead city driver, it’s Jason Seiden, dickhead author!

The internal dialog that follows includes: “Why was I in such a hurry?” “Good thing I didn’t give him the finger.” “I’d better rib him about jumping in front of my car before he ribs me about trying to run him off the road.” Typical stuff.

Tom waits—smiling—as I pull into a parking lot. I walk with him the block to his office. We get caught up, and I tell Tom I have someone he needs to talk to for business. Quite a different ending than had I just driven off, annoyed at some stranger, right?

Which is exactly the point: relationships matter. Imagine if we hadn’t just been negotiating an intersection, but a contract… or a budget item… or a job offer… and had reached an impasse as annoying as a slow-moving intersection.

In that moment, it’s the relationship that keeps options alive.

I just wrote about this on Monday. The effect is real.

So if you’re surrounded by dickhead drivers, dickhead pedestrians, dickhead bosses, dickhead coworkers, dickhead clients, dickheads dickheads dickheads, then guess what?

You are a dickhead.

And you need to go make more friends.

1. Frank Roche posted a couple of weeks back about this NY Times interview with George Cloutier. Frank’s post is entitled, “Worst HR and Business Advice Ever.”

Frank doesn’t actually say “bullshit,” but he does use the superlative “worst,” which counts. Frank, you’ve owed me a phone call for like 3 months, but as long as you keep posting stuff like this, we’re cool.

BTW, for those interested in the science of management, George’s management style is what’s known as “active management by exception.” It’s the 3rd most primitive form of management, after “passive management by exception” and “dead.”

2. The following missive came to me from Winston Wolf, who for all I know could actually be Harvey Keitel. I liked it, so I’m sharing it. Warning: he swears worse than I do.

You know what’s bullshit? Focus groups. A dozen people get paid a ham sandwich and diet coke to sit in a conference room to tell you what they think you want to hear. And then the marketing people come back and say “This ad tested great with focus groups.” Bullshit! Sell some fuckin’ product! Talk to some real consumers who are standing in the cereal aisle with a cranky three year old. Talk to people who are about to spend $20,000+ on a new car and see what matters to them. Talk to your co-worker who can’t link to your presentation on his smartphone to see how he likes the new app.

You know what also “tested great?” Communism! But not too many people are buying it these days…

3. Another reader of mine describes narrowly avoiding a well-done spam scam:

I’ve been receiving e-mails the last week for a brand new program that is “free”, to be launched on saturday. [The email sender] builds it up nice, and sends pretty good videos that more-or-less motivate me. Great! I get the e-mail, go to the site, and after seeing the very big “BUY” links after every paragraph, I decide to click on the “subscriber agreement” link. scrolling through it, i see that the program is free for 14 days; “after that you will be charged $97 per month automatic renewal and we reserve the right to change any fees and add on any additional fees. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYING ANY EXPENSES AND CHARGES INCURRED ON YOUR CREDIT CARD BY ANY THIRD PARTY COMPANY’S THAT CHARGE YOU FOR SERVICES AND PRODUCTS.” (it’s in caps too…)

What?! you’re almost admitting that you’re a scam artist.

Whaddya mean, “almost”?

4. And now I just heard that liberal atheists are smarter than religious conservatives and I can already sense the oncoming tsunami of The Bell Curve-sized bullshit emotional backlash.

It’s a big, fat world out there, folks, filled with big fatheads looking to get bigger and fatter by confusing good people like you and—when I’m not being a fathead myself—me.

Of course, it’s all bullshit, so if you’ve got something you’d like to call out, give it a try.

I’d love to hear.

The HRevolution2010 unconference is coming to Chicago on May 7th-8th! HR social media thought leaders and practitioners from around the country will be converging for 24 hours+ of mind-bending, trend-setting discussions, yet space is limited, so… SIGN UP NOW!

3 reasons why this year’s event will rock:

1. People. First and foremost, it’s the people. And the crew coming together for this year’s unconference is fantastic. The planning committee for 2010 has arranged for about twice the capacity of last year’s event, meaning HRevolution 2010 will blend old faces with new in an intimate setting where networking relationships can unfold naturally and meaningfully.
2. Logistics. We’ve locked up a phenomenal and highly professional space for the event that could not be more perfect for an unconference. HRevolution will take place at Catalyst Ranch, which is one of Chicago’s premier event locations and—bonus!—is centrally located with easy access to hotels, restaurants, and nightlife. Catalyst Ranch is known for bringing a level of fun and sophistication to events that is unparalleled—we don’t recall meeting any other space providers who could so naturally blend “white boards,” “afternoon snack service,” “stereo systems,” and the “Play-Doh for 110 people” into a single conversation. Rest assured, we want you to leave the unconference loving Chicago hospitality.
3. Topics. The beauty of the unconference format is that it is designed to leave you with practical, useful knowledge. When you get back to work on Monday, and when someone asks you, “What did you get for the money,” the answer that flows oh-so-naturally from your lips will blow them away. And you, too, we hope. Especially given the low $100 ticket price!

So if you’re in HR, if you’re dabbling with this social media stuff and thinking “Should I or shouldn’t I” or “How do I…” or even “Why would I,” then get here on May 7th-8th. You will meet the people and learn the stuff and be in the places that make it all come together.

Brought to you by the HRevolution2010 planning committee:
Steve Boese
Ben Eubanks
Joan Ginsberg
Trish McFarlane
Crystal Peterson
Jason Seiden
Mark Stelzner

Many Gen X employees I know operate under the perception that if they just put their head down and work, then good things will happen. They’re sort of right. But to lead, they’re going to have to start making friends with others—coworkers, subordinates, bosses, vendors, and clients—for a variety of reasons, including:

1. Making sure there is a foundation in place for the day when a philosophical disagreement about how to run a department/division/company/partnership threatens to topple the whole thing and send you back to square one.
2. Making it possible for people to send you opportunities. People who don’t like you—or don’t know you—won’t. It’s as simple as that.
3. Protect yourself from the risk of a protracted job search should you ever find yourself on the wrong side on a termination.
4. “The toes you step on today may be connected to the ass you need to kiss tomorrow.” Best to be nice to everyone just in case.

Often, employees not yet at the manager ranks, and managers who haven’t fully mentally vacated their old functional jobs, will challenge me on the concept of “making friends.” Their challenges generally takes one of the following forms:

1. It is inappropriate to befriend a subordinate because then I’m playing favorites.
2. It is inappropriate and unethical, and maybe even illegal, to befriend a vendor because they’ll expect favors.
3. It is inappropriate and unethical, and maybe even illegal, to befriend clients (especially when operating in an RFP setting), because we have to play by the rules.
4. It is inappropriate and disingenuous to befriend a boss because I should be able to get my next job on the merits.

All of these have some truth to them, but none of them are as black-and-white as some would think:

#1 is a straw man. It’s almost impossible to avoid the perception of favoritism amongst subordinates. Look up “Leader Member Exchange Theory” for an understanding of why.

#2 is suggests that friends always ask friends to do unethical things for them. It’s just not that clean; I would hope that you have friends who are principled enough not to ask for favoritism, and I would assume that at least some of your vendors are principled, too. Am I being naive?

#3 is short-sighted. If the only time you interact with your clients is during the RFP process, and you’re not taking an interest in how your products/services are helping them do their jobs better/faster/cheaper, then you deserve to lose the business.

#4 is like saying, “There’s this girl I like, but instead of asking her out on a date, I’m going to just act really cool every day until she notices me and asks me out.” Get the job on the merits, yes. But never forget that you are one of many, many people who merit the job, and so you’re going to have to sell yourself, too.

Bottom line: Gen X, you need the benefits of relationships more than you need to avoid their risks. Get out there.

Make friends.