Steve’s World has been more crazy than usual. For some reason everything is happening at once…a prime example of “be careful what you wish for.” Among other things, a fellow from Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, was passing through and was desperate to meet with me. His assistant and I must have had 50 emails trying to coordinate.
They had a bit of mistake about geography…Birchrunville is not even remotely close to Altoona (I leave you to check this out). Then they had airline schedule issues and I had other things scheduled on the day he needed to meet. Then the day changed. Meanwhile I was moving people back and forth like mad to accomodate him.
Finally, we managed to get it set. At his hotel in New York when he arrived to hang out overnight before a morning flight the next day.
So off I go, take a whole day when…since it was last minute…I was unable to arrange a single other meeting, and meet for a couple of hours. I am happy to share that it was worth the time. Yup, finalized a project, got a quite nice invitation for my next visit, and just might wind up leveraging it to a few other things.
Once again it goes to show, showing up is half the battle.
Wharton Global Consulting Practicum projects are starting up so that’s part of my insanity. You might remember that I run Africa and South America in my spare time. And a bit of other parts of the world that I get dragged to. Getting the teams set, the project faculty set, the teaching assistants set. Way too many details for me so it’s lucky we have the two most amazing ladies to get it all together. I have no idea how Colleen O’Neill and SaraRose Christodoulou do it.
And they have to deal with me while pulling it all together. Clearly they are destined for a genius award.
And if this isn’t bad enough, I have a couple of EOS days to facilitate. You remember EOS…the most amazing system for getting your company humming:
Vision – Everyone in the company knows where we’re going and exactly how we’re going to get there
Traction – Everyone is disciplined and accountable for making progress towards achieving the vision
Healthy – the leadership team is open, honest, cohesive and functional
EOS sessions are full days with the leadership team where nothing intrudes. Everyone is cut off from the world to intensely focus on working on the business to get it running perfectly…or, at least as perfectly as humanly possible.
Makes it a bit hard to keep up with anything else I should be doing. I tend to deal with these days as I do with 16 hour flights…what the heck, the world will survive while I’m out of touch.
And then there are my travels. Off to Tennessee this week for a number of meetings including a nice lunch with a big prospective client. Spending a couple of days with a fellow board member scheming away of how to drive a company forward. Seeing my friend in Nashville who is a Big Deal in the music business and is taking me to the Bluebird Cafe to see some of her friends play. (if you haven’t ever been to the Bluebird, drop everything and get a ticket to Nashville right now)
Then a day or two back in Birchrunville before I’m off to Whidbey Island. And it’s suburb, Seattle. While I write this I am doing the most important thing for getting prepared for this trip: drinking Celestial Seasonings Morning Thunder tea which Holly always has laying around.
Yup, off to see Chocolate Flower Farm, wander around the wilds of Whidbey, and Holly telle me I am going to be going to a Holloween Party. Apparently she has a horse costume waiting that needs a second pair of legs. Guess which end I will be.
Somehow in the midst of all this I hope to keep everything else together.
Before I forget…about the title way up there at the top…I read something about Digital Dementia in The Mail. It seems that research shows that teenagers are suffering an amazing deterioration in cognitive abilities commonly seen in those with head injuries or psychiatric illness. Research is tracking this to hours and hours of digital technology use which leads to a loss of ability to remember.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, I have suffered from this for years but just chalk it up to the fact that my brain is overloaded and needs to delete something for every new thing it wants to add.)
It seems that between 10 and 19 your brain is still developing. Extended use of digital devices hurts the development of the right side of the brain which is the side that controls concentration, or, as I call it Attention, and memory span. The estimate is that in 15% of such kids this will lead to early onset demetia.
If they weren’t too old to have grown up chained to digital devices this would explain the current Congress although I suppose the percentage of those in Congress suffering dementia is way higher than 15%. Our future as a country…millions of people acting like the people in Congress. Now that’s a terrifying thought.
Your last comment reminds me of an experience I had 30 years ago.
I was managing a(n ultimately successful) campaign for Congress. One day, I rang up a political consultant friend who had invited me to call him when (not if) the crisis occurred. The crisis turned out to be one of conscience.
He answered the phone and we had the following conversation:
Political Consultant: “What’s going on?”
Me: “I, um, um, I, I don’t know, I, um. . .”
PC: “I know. You’ve become concerned that your candidate may not be intelligent enough to be a member of The United States House of Representatives.”
Me: “Yes . That’s exactly what’s going on.”
PC: “Well, let me put your mind at ease. I know many members of The United States House of Representatives, and he is.”
True story.