There's no way...

that the UK voters will choose to leave the EU

that the Cavaliers will come back from trailing three games to one and beat the Warriors in the NBA finals

that Donald Trump is a serious candidate for President

that Donald Trump will win a single Presidential primary

that Donald Trump will become the Republican Party Presidential nominee

that Leicester City will win the Premier League

that the United States Congress will continue to react to increasing and worsening mass murders and shootings by doing more or less nothing

that the 'restricted' caller who calls me four or five times each day will continue his or her relentless approaches (ok, that one is really just a personal gripe)

that Microsoft will do anything to LinkedIn that won't be fantastic for LinkedIn users - especially the non-paying ones

that your CEO doesn't have the very best interests of you and the rest of the employees there at ACME Widget company top of mind when making his or her business decisions

that the best producing employee on your team will leave to join the competition for a few more dollars - after all - 'You have a great culture!'

that we won't be shocked by the next shocking turn of events - we know better!

Have a great weekend!

n = 1

1.  We love to talk about 'hiring for cultural fit' but have no idea if we really know how to do that, and if it really matters.

2. You don't really have to be glued to your email 24/7. People who are emailing at all hours are mostly competing on responsiveness instead of on talent/skill/ideas. You can try to do compete on responsiveness for a while, but eventually, maybe soon, you''ll burn out and won't have enough talent/skill/ideas to fall back on.

3. The number of people you can trust, who you can count on, and who really do have your best interests top of mind is fewer than you think. Maybe a lot fewer. But that is ok. One true ally is worth more than twenty impostors.

4. Not everyone in the 'gig' economy is all that thrilled to be chasing gigs all of the time. You might be able to lock up some of your most talented and productive contractors or temp workers for much less than you think.

5. It's probably too late to panic. Just get on with it.

6. Incomplete or incongruous information about prices and salaries make so many of us leave money on the table. Whatever you are thinking of asking for, ask for 20% more.

7. Stop working for free. Truly. You are devaluing your own skills and you are killing the market for everyone else. And to those big, giant companies that continue to want to compensate labor with 'exposure?'. Shame on you too.

8. The single greatest disruption in the 'robots are going to take all the jobs' dynamic might be when self-driving trucks put a million drivers (in the USA only) out of work.

9. Listen to the input of the (few) people you can trust, but always make your own decisions

10. Once your network hits 150 or people, you can't really know them all that well, or meaningfully engage with any more. But you can let them think they know you by sharing just enough information,  in the right places at the right times. It isn't about being fake, it's about recognizing the limits of our capacity to engage. And also about making sure you give yourself the time and space to work on your own ideas, and not be too influenced by what everyone else seems to be fascinated with at the moment.

11. I had a weird dream where I directed a movie. It was like a 'Planet of the Apes' except instead of apes, they were dinosaurs that walked on two legs. Million dollar idea!

To be continued...

Have a great weekend!

An incomplete list of things that are cool #1

New semi-regular series on the blog of things I like, things that are cool, things I think are really interesting but have not gotten around to posting about, and other miscellaneous items hanging out in my Feedly 'Saved for later' queue.

Submitted in no particular order...

1. Why are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation - Long read for the long weekend from the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Worth your time.

2. Canoe Check pocket squares from The Tie Bar

3. Nike Gold Rush running shoes for the Fall

4. Purple, the on-demand gas (like for you car) company. Not incredibly interesting, but it did make me think of what other product categories could benefit from the 'on-demand' treatment. How about an app called 'Beer Run?' Two taps and within 13 minutes a cold 12-pack of Miller Genuine Draft shows up at your door.

5. Speaking of beer, super post from Grant McCracken titled Cultural Leaders and Laggards, the Problem With Beer Ads. You know you have seen the TV spot that is the subject of the post, but have you really seen it?

6. Super take on some recent pro-labor court cases from Matt 'akaBruno' Stollak - Why Good #HR Leaders Aren't Worried About The NLRB 'Joint Employer' Decision. Matt is 100% on the money here - employees at companies that are treated respectfully, paid fairly, and have opportunities to learn and grow generally are not rushing to hold quickie union votes.

7. Pantone Smoothies - perk up your blender game with some of these colorful ideas

8. The Rise of Work Doping - To what extent are we willing to go to improve our performance?

Currently, people require psychiatric diagnoses in order to be prescribed any of these pills. But if these medicines are ultimately found to be safe, and they work for almost everyone, should anyone be able to take them?

And if modafinil does become more widespread, where does it end? Will we soon be locked in a productivity arms race, pumping out late-night memos with one hand while Googling for the latest smart-drug advancement with the other?

9. American Chess May Finally Emerge From the Shadow of Bobby Fischer - A potential renaissance for American players at the highest levels of international chess

10. Robots are better at bricklaying than humans. But a human/robot team is the most productive combination of all.

11. One generation's obsession with Pep. Man, back in the 40s, Pep was a really big deal.

Have a great long weekend! Go Labor!

What are you afraid of?

Note: This week on the blog I am trying out a little experiment - writing on the first five (or so) subjects that popped out at random from a cool little app called Writing Exercises. The app provides suggestions for topics, characters, first lines - that kind of thing. I tapped the 'Random Subject' button a few times and will (try) to come up with something for each subject I was presented. It may be good, it may stink - who knows? But whatever the topic, I am taking like 20 minutes tops to bang something out. So here goes...

Today's (and this little exercise's final) topic is a question: What are you afraid of?, and like yesterday's post, I am going to try and keep this more in a work/workplace/career context. I mean I am afraid of Sasquatch and the a guy sitting next to me on a plane who decides to take off his flip-flops and films with subtitles, but no one cares about that.

So what am I afraid of? Not sure I if I am still afraid of these things, but I probably was at one point or another (or should have been). Here goes...

1. Continuing to work with people that you don't trust - There is always a kind of weird and interesting dynamic in organizations and office politics where on the one hand if everyone succeeds then everyone is happy, but in most organizations 'everyone' isn't who or how we reward that success. Said differently, and hopefully in a way that makes sense, most organizations value team work and collaboration, but when come promotion and raise and bonus time it is literally every man and woman for themselves. Naturally these circumstances lend themselves often to people having to work in their own self-interests, and their self-interests are almost certainly not aligned with yours. Once you get the sense that the big, happy family of collaborating colleagues is actually a pack of loosely organized bloodthirsty pirates, you had better be able to either play the game to win or get yourself out of there. 

2. Staying too long in a job or at an organization that is making you unhappy - Similar to Item 1, I know that there has been a time in my career I lingered at a little too long at a place where I had ceased learning, developing, and being excited to be there. It was for all the usual reasons that I stayed - finances, location, family obligations, etc.  The same reasons you are probably gutting it out in a job you don't like either. But even though we can pretty effectively rationalize the 'stick it out' decision, in the longer term it is almost always one we will regret. 

3. Letting someone else (or expectations) manage your career choices. One of the things most folks should do, at least early in their careers, is take the time to experiment. I am talking about taking at least some time to try a few different roles/industries/kinds of jobs in order to figure out what you are actually good at doing. It is so easy to come out of college as say an accounting major and then take your first accounting job which leads to the next accounting job and so on and so on. Until 18 years later you are the Assistant Controller and you realize that you don't really like accounting. But your Dad told you to major in accounting because it 'Would be easy to get a job after you graduate' and so you did and then, well, you know the rest. So take some time to ty out some things when you are young and you only have to worry about supporting yourself. Finding something you actually enjoy and are good at will make you infinitely happier in the long run.

Ok, that is it from me for the week. And that is the end, (thankfully), of this week's Writing Exercises experiment. Thanks for indulging me. 

Have a great weekend!

Regret

Note: This week on the blog I am trying out a little experiment - writing on the first five (or so) subjects that popped out at random from a cool little app called Writing Exercises. The app provides suggestions for topics, characters, first lines - that kind of thing. I tapped the 'Random Subject' button a few times and will (try) to come up with something for each subject I was presented. It may be good, it may stink - who knows? But whatever the topic, I am taking like 20 minutes tops to bang something out. So here goes...

Today's subject: Regret

It is pretty typical and generally accepted life advice that one should live and plan and do in order to arrive at a place, usually somewhere near the end of the line, with no or at least very, very few regrets. The line of thinking holds that most people when reaching that point where they are doing a reckoning of their lives feel the worst about the things they never did or never tried or never took the time or risk to explore. Most of us, the thinking goes, lament the things we didn't do, much more so than whatever failures or disappointments we endured from the things we actually did.

And I think that mostly makes sense. We don't, most likely, get to the end of our time and think about (too much) the more mundane and specific aspects of how we lived - where we worked, what we did, who we socialized with, where we traveled, etc. Of course we will think about our families and close friends, both the ones who have passed and those we might be leaving behind. And one thing I know for sure, no one sits up on their death bed and thinks, 'Gee, I wish I would have drank more glasses of water every day.' So have that Diet Coke or Mountain Dew or Schlitz. Have whatever you want.

But back to regret, (and I need to wrap this up fast as I got distracted by a shiny object or someone jiggling some keys and I only have 2 minutes left to my self-policed deadline for finishing this post).

Here's what I think I think about regret.

If you did truly reach the end of the line with no regrets you probably had a pretty rich, fulfilling, happy, and positive life.

But it is also quite possible you didn't dream enough or 'big' enough too. I think that it is probably ok to have a regret or two. It is ok to have, at one time, had some kind of big, audacious idea or plan or dream that for whatever reason you were unable to try and make a reality. It is ok to have missed, at least a little.

I sort of don't really trust people who claim to have no regrets. Kind of the same way I don't really trust people who claim to not watch TV or who don't like White Castle.

I know I will have at least one regret. And that is writing this post...

Have a great week!