Partial Bolding + Recordation vs Recollection + Pay Phones + 50 Years of Exile

This week I made a trip to Austin, TX, sneaking midweek vacation in with my wife beside two mastermind sessions with Gary Keller, Jay Papasan, Jason Abrams, and a few hundred of my favorite KW associates. The most important part of that trip though, was a gun safety protest that Liz and I attended at the Texas State Capitol on Wednesday. In the aftermath of the Uvalde massacre I can’t help but fixate on how broken our society and political system are, especially around the issue of guns. Whatever your beliefs are, the facts are simple: fewer guns means fewer gun deaths. 

If you have a desire to see fewer mass shootings, suicides, accidental deaths, less crime overall, and even decreased police shootings…please take one simple action to voice your will. Here’s a link to find something that can be done, no matter where you live or what your outlook. 

This blog is usually a lot lighter, so getting back to that, here’s what else this week had me:

Thinking - A tweet I saw pointed to the benefits of bionic reading. It’s a simple typeface that bolds the first few letters of each word and improves cognition and speed while reading. I recall hearing that the brain really only uses the first few letters in a word to identify it, and this research seems to support that, especially among neurodivergent readers. If I had used it here, you'd probably already be reading about pay phones. ;-)

Watching - My kids are really into a show called Brian Child. On one episode we watched this week, the show featured an experiment highlighting the idea of cognitive offloading. The idea is simple: when we commit something to record, it has an effect on our memory. For example taking notes while reading helps improve comprehension and memory. The example the crew of Brain Science used was taking a photo of something. This cognitive offloading seems to work in reverse. When we snap a photo of a place or person or an event, our brain is conditioned to spend less energy on that memory, because there’s a record of it somewhere else. It raises a good question, next time you’re on vacation how can you take a few less photos and commit a little more to memory? 

Remembering - The days when we used pay phones are long gone, but this week the last public pay phone was removed from the streets of New York City. Check out the video here. Now where are we going to find an extra quarter when we need one? 

Weekly Gig - Earlier this month, I missed the chance to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of rock & roll’s most epic albums  On May 12th Exile On Main Street turned 50 years old. To celebrate, here’s a show from the Stone’s 1972 Deuces Still Wild Tour. Get your rocks off! 

Happy Memorial Day weekend, y'all. 

Willie and Trigger + An 84 Year Tenure + My First Bat Mitzvah

You know those weeks where Tuesday seems like Wednesday, and Wednesday seems like it should be Friday? That’s where I was this week, though I’m not sure why. Nothing seemed to drag on. Everything moved at a good pace. I just couldn’t catch the calendar. Sometimes the days blow by so fast you miss them. Other times one day’s passing seems like it took two or three days’ time. A few things caught my attention around longevity this week. Here’s how they showed up:

Listening - Last week’s news of Naomi Judd got me wandering down the dusty trails of country music I was exposed to as a kid. The most prominent among those troubadours is Willie Nelson, so it was neat to see this InsideHook article pop up this week detailing the best of the 88 (yes…eighty-eight!) albums he’s released - just one shy of how many years he’s been on this planet! Among my favorites in his massive canon are Shotgun Willie, Red Headed Stranger, Stardust, and Half Nelson. On all of those records, and for more than 10,000 shows Willie has played a modified Martin N-20 guitar that he’s named Trigger. It’s a battered and bruised beauty that Willie still trots out for every gig. It proves that music is function over form and that new doesn't always beat old. Trigger is such an iconic instrument, it even has its own Wikipedia page. If you haven't seen it, be sure to check it out. And if you've never seen Willie play Whiskey River live, he's still on tour. In the mean time, stream a few numbers from the red headed stranger this week. 

Reading - This very short Morning Brew article about one man’s 84 year tenure working for the same company was refreshing. In a world where so many of us ponder our careers, strive to achieve massive goals, and measure our worth against our accomplishments, Walter Orthmann offers an alternative. He is 100 years old, and when asked why he’s been in the same position for so many decades, her replied “All I care about is that tomorrow will be another day in which I will wake up, get up, exercise, and go to work; you need to get busy with the present, not the past or the future.” That’s incredible! Simple, practical wisdom from a man who’s been around to see so much!

Reflecting on - I attended my first bat mitzvah this weekend. I’m 43 years old so it’s kind of surprising that it took this long. I love seeing different traditions, and being part of this one was very special. The ceremony was held for my neighbor Lorelei as she became an adult member of her synagogue’s community. As part of the ceremony Lorelei offered a lesson for the congregation. She quoted John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, telling us that we must stand up for one another and ourselves. She drew from their speeches and teachings to remind us that believing something is not enough; belief must be enacted to make a difference. She was eloquent and thoughtful in her delivery. And she was nervous too, as most teenagers rightfully are when they deliver a big speech in a high pressure moment of their life. Watching Lorelei smile through those nerves and speak deep truth learned from inspirational leaders made me so grateful that she is part of my community, and it brought me mountains of hope for my children’s generation. 

Weekly Gig - One of the best, and longest running, music shows on television is Austin City Limits. Willie Nelson performed on the pilot back in 1976 and has been on something like two dozen times. Rather than pick a single show, here are 32 tracks from across those appearances collected in one place. 

Have a long running, connected week.

Defining a Second + Overvalued Early Picks + Remembering Naomi Judd

I have an old 1975 Ford F-100 that I love to drive. It needs a bath right now, and it can be persnickety, but it runs like a top. It's older than me and in some ways it's probably easier to get along with too. Hopefully we all improve with age. This week I got to drive it out to rural Virginia and back twice. Getting time on the road, windows down and music up in an old truck, is a pretty easy way for me to escape and find nostalgia and to reflect. Here's a bit of what this week, and those drives had me:

Thinking - This week scientists announced the new definition of a second. It doesn't really change how long a second is, but it does improve the accuracy of how a second is counted. Knowing what time it is, at least beyond the season, is a relatively new idea in human history. Measurement of time -- be it in days, hours, minutes, seconds, or nanoseconds -- allows us to do some pretty amazing things. We can coordinate school schedules, perform heart surgery, even calculate space travel. All of these are undoubtedly great abilities, and the micro-measurement of time will allow us to make amazing scientific advancements that improve our quality of life. The thing though, is that time can begin to take over our lives. And I'd argue that it's not all that important to our fundamental happiness. Heck, it may actually be counter to our happiness. When we are doing what we truly enjoy, time doesn't really factor in. Time actually evaporates in flow state. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that flow is the secret to happiness. It's very possible that our ancestors lived much happier, albeit less well, than we do because of their inability to track time and live in the flow. When we remove the pressure of being somewhere, or delivering something, or doing an action by a specific date and time, we can reduce stress. This isn't always possible, but it's become pretty natural for most of us to place artificial deadlines on just about everything. How much pressure could you release by removing some of that time constraint from your schedule? Could it be enough to redefine how you measure -- or at least use -- time?

Reading - Every year the National Football League puts on a huge spectacle. It's not the Super Bowl; it's the NFL Draft. And it's possible that there's more wagering going on among teams at the Draft than there is among fans around the Super Bowl. This annual event is where billions of dollars are wagered on which college football players will have the biggest impact on the NFL's 32 teams. It's fun to see who reaches for a surprise pick (which usually fails) but almost all of these selections are more hope and hype than help. History shows that teams grossly overvalue high picks and disproportionately devalue late round selections. Recently though we've seen a few teams buck this trend, trading away multiple first round picks for proven league veterans. The LA Rams did that last year, and ended up winning the Super Bowl with Matthew Stafford. This reminds me of the old parable about a pottery class: 

There was once a teacher who decided to split his month long pottery class into two groups. Group A had to make a pot every day for 30 days (30 pots in total). Group B had to work on a single pot for the whole 30 days. At the end of the month, the teacher judged the quality of the pots. Without exception, every one of the top 10 pots came from Group A, the group that made one pot per day. None came from the group that focused on perfecting their single pot. 

It's not a direct parallel, but it does show the lesson that the quality (or in the NFL's case, the certainty) is in the quantity. Raw talent is great, but it's not enough to place a massive wager on. Experience in the arena is what we should evaluate, and value the most. This is also why, as a Broncos fan, I was so pleased to see them trade for Russell Wilson instead of reaching for a QB in the first round this year. 

Remembering - The 80s and 90s were a heyday for Country music. Many would argue that they were its pinnacle. From my view, it's certainly been pretty downhill since then. (Sorry, Luke Bryan.) Throughout these two decades there were many amazing women who raised the bar of music performance: Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Loretta Lynn, Tanya Tucker, Shania Twain, and more. This week we lost one of those icons in Naomi Judd. She and her daughter Wynona formed The Judds in 1983 and went on to release a string of chart toppers and take home a slew of music awards. If you're unfamiliar with their work, you can find them at #6 on this list of The Top 40 Female Country Singers of All Time.  I'm also linking to their 1991 Farewell Concert below. 

Weekly Gig - As just mentioned, this week's show is from 1991 in Murfreesboro, TN. Enjoy The Judds' Farewell Concert. Farewell, Naomi. 

Happy a newly defined, appropriately valued, angelic week.