I always wanted to be a dwarf warrior. It makes sense that the nerdy, not-really-athletic, 12-year-old me wanted to be a strong, badass adventurer when I played Dungeons & Dragons with my cousins. Since I was never one of the popular kids, I had a chance through role-playing games to stretch out my imagination and try on different personas. I could learn how to work with others and how to problem-solve. And I got to feel powerful and in control (which are feelings usually lacking in adolescence). I was reminded of my role-playing adventures in grade school while watching the Netflix series Stranger Things. The show revolves … [Read more...]
I Always Question My Answers (And You Should Too)
One of my favorite albums from my favorite bands is Question the Answers by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. You probably haven't heard of it, but I love it. (Mostly, by the way, because of how it spoke to me about my life when it came out. Anthony Bourdain said, “Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life.” I think the same applies for albums). Beyond the music, it was also one of the first times I heard the phrase "question the answers." Besides just being a pithy slogan, it pointed to a deeper idea: There is no final certainty that we can achieve that lets us slack off intellectually, morally, or … [Read more...]
The Seemingly Forgotten Value of Labor: Wake Up and Go to Work
After my freshman year of college, I went back to Milwaukee for the summer. I worked for a corporate landscape company and spent the summer hedging shrubs and trees. I regularly worked 10 hours a day...and this was the summer in the mid-90's that was so hot that over 300 people died of heat-related incidents just down the road in Chicago. The crew chief, one of the year-round employees, looked me over at the end of a day when I was particularly sweat-soaked and grimy. "Hey Fisher, hard work, huh? Pretty good motivation to go back and study your ass off." And I did, but now I'm amused at the thought that getting a degree and working … [Read more...]
The Problem with the Paralyzing Power of Self-Image
"Play as loud as you can, as fast as you can, as hard as you can." That was a quote written in black Sharpie on one of my cymbals when I was playing in a band. I wrote it there because that was the energy I wanted to bring to our live shows. And our shows reflected that ethos. They were high-octane dance parties (even if there wasn't anyone at the show - we were more than happy to entertain ourselves). It's how I saw myself as a musician. It was the image in my mind that I tried to live up to. It's how I self-identified. There was nothing wrong with that self-image, but when I listen to old recordings of our shows, I can also … [Read more...]
Can You Dial for Dollars When There Are No Dials?
I saw a meme that pointed out that the "dial" button on a cell phone has no bearing on actually dialing the phone. If you haven't seen a rotary phone in use (and most people under 30 probably haven't), you've actually never seen a phone get "dialed". Yet we still use the terminology because as phones evolved, the term just morphed to cover pushing buttons with numbers, and then eventually just scrolling to someone's name. Our lives are full of unexamined pieces that are there because of inertia. For example: I remember one of the first handouts I got at a sales meeting when I first started selling Cutco Cutlery over 20 years ago. … [Read more...]
Soft Skills Have Hard Effects
Why do bands break up? A lot of them cite "creative differences", but they are rarely arguing about whether they should play a song in A sharp or E minor. What it usually means is that the musicians in the band can't get along. If I was starting a band today, I wouldn't necessarily look for the best musicians. Instead I would look for people that can communicate well, that are emotionally stable, and have their act together. I would want to find people that I could get along with. It doesn't matter if everyone in the band is a great musician if they have such monumental egos that they can't stand each other (just ask The … [Read more...]
We All Have to Grind For Something – So Make it Spectacular
Sometimes, even video games become a grind. But that doesn't mean we stop playing. In fact, for some of us, that's the goal. Grinding is a term used in gaming (especially for on-going games where you build a character) when you repeat the same actions over and over to increase your experience/in-game cash/equipment or something else. It could mean that you play the same level over and over, or the same mini-game countless times. I have run through the same missions in Destiny more times than I'd like to admit in my quest to have a top-tier character... What makes it a grind is that you aren't doing anything new, you aren't … [Read more...]
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