More Projects That Can Make a Difference

As I wrote yesterday, I have many more project ideas than I have time for. So, if you don't want to do any of those I mentioned yesterday, how about one of these?

• A private elementary school for high-ability kids or a chain of them. No Child Left Behind and other public school programs driven more by politics than pedagogy are denying bright kids their right to an appropriate education, curtailing their ability to live up to their potential.
  
• A career counselor who does the job searching for clients. This person would cold-call and answer want ads on behalf of clients, so all the client would have to do was show up at the interview.
• Create Utopia College, an undergraduate college whose sole mission was to help undergraduates grow in important ways and to land good employment after graduation.
• Advocate for men. On behalf of the National Organization for Men, continually send op-eds and letters to the editors of the major media. Offer to appear on major TV shows, perhaps having debates on such propositions as: Who has it better: men or women?
• Intelligent Choice: A high-school or college course helping young women to realize that the choice of their child's father has a profound effect on both their child and themselves.
• A parenting education course: Taught in high schools, colleges, as part of LaMaze classes, or in maternity ward hospital rooms, this course, based on the critical incidents in parenting ,would help ensure that, from day one, parents had the skills to raise their children well.
• A financial literacy course: Taught in high schools or colleges, this would teach students how to get good deals, avoid getting ripped off, manage checkbooks and credit, and invest wisely (The word "Vanguard" would appear prominently.)
  
• An entrepreneurship course: This, unlike courses commonly taught in universities, would not focus on building scalable large innovations, which are too risky for the average self-employment aspirant. This course would focus on replicating low-investment, proven successful businesses as well as the art of unearthing out new, practical ideas and how to bring them to fruition.
  
• Champion three-week-long, publicly funded elections. That would encourage good candidates to run and ensure they weren't in special interests' hip pockets. To help ensure an informed electorate, voter information pamphlets and websites would include the candidates' voting record and position on key issues.
  

A Great Way to Get Expert Fast

I just finished a session with a client who develops advertising ideas and copy. He works for a second-tier ad agency but would like to move up.

I suggested he create a nugget file. That's simply a word-processing file in which he writes one-line nuggets, each describing a key tool or principle in great advertising. I suggested he find those nuggets by studying the advertising that recently won a national award. (I cautioned against going back to old ads, because the world has changed.) Because it's critical to apply learning right away, I then suggested he apply those nuggets to improving his own website, which will be the "ad" he'll use to sell himself to those big-time ad agencies. He said he loved the idea.

Yesterday, I suggested that another client start a nugget file. He's about to begin landscape architecture school at Cornell. His goal is to specialize in coastline landscape architecture. I suggested he create a nugget file on that specialization and that he gather the nuggets in three ways:

1. Do a Google search for on-target articles and an Amazon search for on-target books.

2. Ask your professor to let you to do assignments and term papers that focus on coastline landscape architecture.

3. During class sessions, listen for nuggets.

Like my ad writer client, he said he is excited about keeping a nugget file.

Should you keep a nugget file on some topic?

Lessons from Chopin

Frederic Chopin, at the age of 38, wrote this in a letter to his friend, Auguste Franchomme:

"I have promised to play at a concert for 60 pounds. ...I am counting on earning that 60 pounds. What to do with myself next, I don't know, but I earnestly wish that somebody would give me--to the end of my life--an annual pension for not composing."

Two lessons I derive:

1. Even a composer as great as Chopin (my personal favorite), may always have to worry about money. Alas, things haven't changed.

2. Even people in so-called dream careers often feel disillusioned with it. Some of Chopin's discontent came from his already starting-to-fail health, but reading his letters suggests that much of his malaise derived from his personality. I believe that contentment lies primarily within one's hard-wiring, which can be ameliorated only somewhat by a persistent effort to remain positive.

And now, I invite you to take 4 1/2 minutes from your busy life to watch this video of a scene from the movie The Pianist. Not only is it great Chopin, but it is moving for another reason. Click HERE.

A Man Who Gives All for Family...Is it Worth It?

I have a male client who's married to a stay-at-home wife. To fund her big-spending ways, he's had to take a job that few people would describe as inordinately rewarding, especially in today's market: He sells real estate. Not surprisingly, he's having a tough time making a living at it, a cause of great stress: His wife is hounding him to make more money lest they lose their suburban mini-mansion. He tries ever harder because "What do you expect? I have to support my family."

His wife had a child from a previous marriage who has "issues:" This 24-year-old sits in an apartment smoking pot all day. waiting for her boyfriend to come home. My client spends large amounts of time trying to help his stepchild. He's a kind, patient man, and his drugged-out stepkid yells at him for "not giving me space, and coming down on me." He continues to try to help. He says, "What do you expect? It's my family."

Now, it appears his sister, who has been a lifelong professional student and hoarder/pack rat has decided to move near my client. He says, "I'll do the best I can for her." I ask him, "Do you really need to do that?" He says, "It's family."

Yesterday, he thought he was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a false alarm, but I'm betting he's at-risk.

What is his wife doing to help reduce his stress? Is she getting a job to help share the financial burden? No: After his heart attack scare, her response was, "I think you should take out more life insurance." Is that what a family member should say?

This client is one of the more extreme examples, but I have found many men who give it all to family, including paying the ultimate price, and derived far too little in exchange. Especially for many, although certainly not all men, I believe family is overrated.

Two Under-the-Radar Ideas for Improving the World

A book (and then a TV special, column, and radio talk show) called America Talks About Race. Barack Obama is calling for an open dialogue about race. So did Bill Clinton. So does every diversity trainer. Yet, to date, it hasn't really happened. I see the need for a book called America Talks About Race, based both on a survey and perhaps 30 Americans' (white, black, Latino, Asian, Native American and mixed-race) stories about their experiences regarding race and their recommendations for how race-related problems might best be improved.

I might decide to write it but prefer if someone else did: I have more projects I'd like to take on than I could complete in a lifetime.

A lawsuit demanding men's studies programs. Women's studies departments have done much to advance women's causes. It has been said there's no need for men's studies departments because men are hegemonic. I believe that's unfair. With boys doing worse in schools than girls, graduating from college in far fewer numbers, in prison in far greater numbers, with many men of all income levels feeling alienated, and spending their last decade in worse health than women and dying 5.3 years sooner, there is a real need for men's studies programs.

Efforts to start men's studies programs have met with resistance from universities. I believe that advocates of men's studies programs need to take a lesson from women's advocacy groups: When women's groups couldn't get what they wanted using persuasion, they sued. I believe it's time for an equal protection lawsuit: Just as Title IX legislation mandated equalized funding for women's and men's sports in colleges, there should be equal funding for men's and women's studies.

Anyone want to spearhead that suit? Again, I might do that but prefer if someone else did.

An Exchange with a Leading U.S. Environmental Policymaker

I sent a leading environmental policymaker the link to a site that:

1. Lists 31,000 scientists including Berkeley's Nobel Prize winner Edward Teller and MIT's Alfred Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Richard Lindzen, who signed a petition disagreeing with the highly influential IPCC panel's report saying that massive effort should be made to cool the earth; that is, stop global warming.

2. Explains that contrary to media reporting, that IPCC report (funded by the UN) is substantively politically motivated rather than objective-science-driven.

3. Contains a refereed-journal-published review of the peer-reviewed scientific research, which concludes that significant doubt exists as to whether global warming is real, significantly manmade, and practically remediable.

My email to him continued:

Can you see why I believe it is premature for the world to embark on measures that will be of unprecedented cost and painful effect on the people who can least afford it in an attempt to cool the earth when global warming may turn out to be a non-problem, and even if it becomes a problem, it won't be for a long time, at which point new technologies will have sufficiently mitigated the problem? As even the environmentalist-run U.S. Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration agrees, average global temperature has increased a total of just 1 degree since 1880(!), absolutely no increase in the last decade despite a major increase in CO2 emission, and the best projections are for global COOLING for the next decade. Even if later, there is a resumed upward trend, by then, non-fossil-fuel technology (solar, wind, nuclear, etc) will likely have advanced enough to preclude the need for such draconian restrictions on humankind. Am I being foolish?

I fully recognize that all the leaders of major governments, even George Bush, say we need to make massive efforts to stop global warming/climate change. So, not withstanding the 31,000 scientists, it's certainly possible that climate change is worth addressing. But what am I not understand that justifies the immediate massive pain that Gore and others of his ilk are calling for?

Marty

His response: "Even if it turns out that human induced climate change is modest, the benefits of aggressive reductions in oil use and improved energy efficiency are huge – and the strategies to do so are almost identical to those to reduce CO2. "

My response to him: There should be an enormous difference in the policy implications if global warming is not a serious concern. The difference: drilling for oil and natural gas to bridge us between now and when non-fossil-fuel energy becomes cost-effective. That enables people to not suffer restrictions on their freedom of mobility that come from higher gas prices and current proposals to restrict driving, freedom to be comfortable in their homes (no restrictions on thermostats), and freedom from the increases in the cost of living that will come from cap and trade, buy-local, and other restrictions that would be particularly painful to the working class and poor.

He responded: Drilling for more oil is good and would not be precluded by a climate policy. At worst, a small charge would be added to oil prodn costs (say, 30 cents/gallon) (via cap and trade or carbon tax) which would have zero effect on oil drilling. This is a false argument on your part.

I responded:

I don't think so. Earlier, you agreed that the science behind the global warming/climate change hypothesis is equivocal enough that that shouldn't be used to justify imposing your aforementioned painful restrictions on the public to try to cool the earth.

And you haven't countered my argument that by drilling and use of existing and ever evolving current technologies, we'll bridge the 10-15 years until technological advances enable us to become energy independent.

So why impose a cap and trade/carbon tax (which would raise the costs of many other items other than gasoline) not to mention the other sources of public pain you've supported: restricting driving with Big-Brother monitors on car odometers and thermostats?

Remember the human costs of such restrictions: For example, a working-class non-custodial parent who wanted to visit their child regularly who lived 40 miles away would find it financially painful if not infeasible to do so. Many older people who are in good health and thus could not get a physician's exemption, are uncomfortable unless the thermostat is at 74 or 75, even with a sweater on. You'd force them to feel cold in their own homes.

Please recognize that you're hurting the lives of millions of human beings every time you impose one of the proposed restrictions. There needs to be darn good science to justify that.

He responded:

We’ll never be energy independent (at least in this century). Carbon is an extrnaliity, just like pollution and energy security. The rational efficient way to internalize those costs is with a carbon tax or something similar.

I responded: It is not rational. Your scheme will hurt literally billions of people because of your perceived need to control carbon, despite the ambiguity of the science and despite the fact that in 10-15 years, before oil will have come close to running out, new technologies will have advanced enough that we won't be too dependent on foreign oil, and importantly, we will not have made billions of people suffer in the meantime.

He responded:

What about the 100+ million Bangladesh people who are about to be flooded out of their country by rising sea levels? And you are dreaming (or smoking something) if you believe there will be oil substitutes in 10-15 years (or probably even further, especially if we don’t have carbon taxes or something similar).

I responded:

We're going round and round: You granted that the science is ambiguous on whether climate change is occurring and substantially man-made. Current potential flooding in one place on earth is no evidence of man-induced climate change. It's much more likely just one example of the natural disasters that have occurred since the earth began. Indeed, a recent court case debunked the CO2/hurricane connection. Saying that one place on earth may suffer severe flooding is far from justification for making the entire world suffer to try to cool the globe, when it well may be a non-issue.

I'll ignore your latest ad hominem remark ("Are you dreaming or smoking something?") and instead focus on the substantive issue: many experts agree that a combination of oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, biofuels, etc will, as I wrote, make it likely that "we won't be too dependent on foreign oil'" in the next 10 to 15 years, and "importantly, we will not have made billions of people suffer in the meantime."

Dear readers, help me understand what is wrong with my analysis?

Note: I withhold the name of the aforementioned policymaker because he's a friend and I promised that his comments would not be for attribution.

Advice to a Procrastinating Choreographer

A young client said he'd like to be a fight choreographer but that he tends to be lazy and a procrastinator. Here's the essence of what I said to him:

In a field as competitive as choreography, unless you're amazingly talented, you are going to have to cure your procrastination and become absolutely driven to be the best because there are many, many people willing to do whatever it takes to land that rare choreography work that pays enough fto support yourself even modestly.

That means, for example, even before starting choreography school, reading the best books and articles about fight choreography, watching dozens of choreographed fights (writing in a journal what you loved and didn't love about each), asking world-class fight choreographers questions and begging to meet them and/or to have them review the many choreographed fights you will have developed, then going to the choreography school, working harder than any student in the program, building relationships with the best fight choreographers in Hollywood so you can land a job as an assistant to one of them. Then, on the job, you must be hard working, a great guy, and ask counsel of your boss. You must also network relentlessly with the people with the power to hire you to be a choreographer.

I am not exaggerating: that is what it will likely take to give you even a reasonable chance of making a living as a fight choreographer. So, still want to do it?

Dear reader, are you attempting a long-shot career with a half-baked effort?