Where were you 22 Years Ago on 9/11?

As many of you know, I have been working with two colleagues and friends to start a new consulting company that has taken a great deal of my time and exhausting my writing talents. But, I keep thinking there must be something to contribute to my own blog. This morning I thought about the top ten lessons from the pandemic.

1) Does it really matter?  Does it matter what car you drive?  Does it matter how many square feet are in your home?  Does it matter which celebrity you ran into at Starbucks? Does it matter whether you are the president or a kid in school?  It doesn’t matter at all to COVID, as it doesn't discriminate. Hopefully, as we look forward, we will all remember our change in priorities learned during the pandemic.  I hope to keep my focus on human relationships, health, safety, and happiness compared to the desire for material goods and power.  

2) The digital divide in this country is getting larger.  Like it or not, there is a divide between those who are leading a digital transformation and the rest of the businesses in this country.  The digital transformation brought by cloud computing can make computing and solutions available to companies of all sizes, which is a good thing.  It can also leave many successful businesses vulnerable to unseen competition, heightened by the pandemic, from near and far away. 

It is great to have Amazon as an option to buy things now cause it is safer during the pandemic. In the long run, shopping on Amazon doesn't help local businesses, and it limits our choices by how good Amazon is at searches and recommendations.

In the short run, post-pandemic, we should all commit to the old fashioned way of shopping if we can.  Such as getting in the car and going to local stores and browsing to see what they have.  They may have something new and different, and your purchases will help those that have suffered a great deal during the pandemic. 

3) We are seeing fewer people that don't look like us. Think about it.  You attend a zoom call with family.  You may have a Webex with your colleagues and clients.  How many of those people don't share your skin color, gender, religion, or nationality?  Is it less diverse than before the pandemic?  Without meeting others that are different, we become complacent and allow our fears and prejudices to simmer and grow.

I am constantly reminded that diversity matters not just in keeping our minds and hearts open, but diversity of ideas and thoughts improves our creativity, our lives, and business.

In these times, where many of us spend most of our days at home, we need to focus extra hard on the value of diversity for our personal lives, our country, and the global community.

4) I continue to be surprised by Lucky, the cat.

If you have been reading my blog, you know I love
dogs and DaisyBelle in particular.  But, I have learned a lot from Lucky.  First, obviously, she is not a dog. She truly has a unique personality and priorities that are not DaisyBelle's.  You don't walk up and surprise her.  She is playful while being quite smart at paying attention to what is important to her.  She also is more routine-oriented than I expected.  Between her and DaisyBelle, we get up between 5 or 5:30 am.  On Weekdays Frank takes Daisybelle in the morning, and I go for a power walk except for Wednesdays.  Lucky doesn’t like that I am in bed on Wednesdays later than expected and will come into our room and check on me a few times before I get out of bed. 

She is also more affectionate than I expected.  During the pandemic, she has added a scheduled nap around 3 pm and expects me with her.  At night around 9 pm, we have a ritual, DaisyBelle goes out in the back, and Lucky gets carried out to check out the fresh air before bed.   Often, Frank is watching a sci-fi movie, and I go watch something exciting like "Call the Midwife," and she and DaisyBelle join me in the bedroom.  If we don’t go out at our usual time, Lucky is not happy, and she expects me to join her as she expects me in bed on schedule with her and Miss Belle. Last night, we were watching the last episode of The Undoing and went past 10pm. Lucky was not happy about this and made us aware of the error of our ways.

5) If cats and dogs can get along, why can't we?  Take this example a bit further.  It is not just that Lucky is a pretty special cat.  It is also that she and DaisyBelle have developed a pretty special relationship.  Cats and Dogs aren't supposed to get along, sort of like Republicans and Democrats.  But guess what, they have learned not only to tolerate one another but to get care about one another.  Going back to our 9 pm ritual each night, DaisyBelle does not want to go out until Lucky is joining her.  When Lucky gets scared outside, she runs into the house, and DaisyBelle doesn't hesitate to run outside to her defense.  At night, they tend to sleep close to one another.  So, we humans have a lot to learn from our pets.

6) Science is not a religion.  I didn't learn this during the pandemic, but it seems like a good addition here.  Science is not perfect.  There were several scientists, in earlier times, that insisted that the earth was flat. Guess what, over time, with observation and proof, the scientist changed their opinion.  There is a scientific method, but there aren’t the Lab's ten commandments (I don't think.).  The idea of testing hypotheses, having peer reviews, and documenting all they do means there is natural skepticism in every discovery.  To be skeptical of a scientific statement is to be a scientist.  To discount a scientific fact or theory based on a hunch or feeling is not wise at all.   At this time of the COVID vaccine, and their rapid discovery, it is human to be skeptical.  It is wise to follow the science read up on the side effects and talk to a trained scientist who may be your doctor, and make a logical decision that can impact your health as well as others around you. 

7) A college education is not evil.  There has been much discussion about Biden, and most of his cabinet appointees have college degrees from top schools.  Since when did being well educated become a negative?  Many very smart people didn’t go to college.  I will be the first to admit one of the smartest people I know hated school and happens to be creative and successful.  He is a voracious reader and learner, just not in a traditional education setting.  

However, for most, education and college is a good thing.  The expectation of getting a direct return for the investment in a student's time at college is wrong.  College should be aiding in people’s ability to think, compare, debate, and build curiosity. For me, education helped me succeed in life and adjust to new challenges and opportunities.  Colleges are not trade schools, and to expect something akin to a trade school is setting up students for wrong expectations.

  

8) Social Media is even more dangerous during a pandemic.  I wrote about a digital bill of rights in January, before the pandemic was top on people's minds.  I support congress challenging these companies and their monopoly on thought and discussion.  Their algorithms focus on their desire to keep your eyes on their page for advertising and not on curating true and factual information to share. That can slant people's opinions, especially if they believe it to be fact.  

Just because Donald Trump keeps repeating there were issues with the election doesn't make it so.  I can understand him feeling Tuesday night he was winning a landslide, and waking up to losing the election was not easy to take.  I was a mighty pitiful soul that Tuesday night, thinking we had four more years of him.  But, the more he repeats his unproven theories, the more people see them. They generate more revenue for these companies by more and more people viewing his rants and then viewing the accompanying advertising. This repetition of false claims, by anyone and not just Trump, can even make the skeptics believe it is true.

This is true of anything.  Attached is a lovely picture from the creek along the trail here in Longview. I can share just this, and you will think I am walking in the wilderness and came upon a creak.  But, I am really on a cement path, and if you could see a few feet further than the horizon of the picture, there is a fuel pipe crossing the creek.  The answer is if I show you just what I want, I can make you believe something very far from the actual truth.

During the pandemic, I see people traveling, and it all looks nice and safe.   I know, logically, it is not.  I know that traveling in groups with people I don't know their safety protocol, but I know it is putting myself and everyone I love in jeopardy.  But that doesn't stop the pull to want to believe what I see because I want to go to a beach somewhere.  

Before the pandemic, we all suffered from the illusion of social media.  Look at me on a great vacation and having fun at a local restaurant. No mention, the day after, that I got indigestion from that fun-looking restaurant and suffered all night.  Let me show you my new home, my new car, and my smart kid who got into USC on an athletic scholarship.  We don't know all the background of challenges in people's lives but seeing it all unfold on social media creates a sense our lives are not measuring up to others. 

I will write about this more in the future, but the pandemic needs to show us all what really matters and hopefully reset our expectations of what we see and share with each other.  There needs to be a balanced discussion, so we all see our lives as a treasure and not compare with others that look like their lives are perfect all the time.

9) It is good to be kneaded.  I was afraid of making bread.  The idea of kneading dough kept me from it.  I thought I wouldn’t do it right, and the wiser folks on the food channels warned of under-kneading and over kneading bread.  That said, I watched Paul Hollywood make bread so often on the British Baking shows that I kept thinking, "I can do that."  We have the hallowed Kitchenaid mixer, and it has a dough hook, so can't I do that?  Then I heard it is easy to over-knead with the mixer but not by hand.  So, I started my adventure into bread making.

I enjoy it.  First, we don't have a great bread bakery here in Longview, or I haven't found one.  In Austin and Fort Lauderdale, it was a drive down the street to pick out a fabulous bread of choice, and here not so much.  Second, I liked the challenge and thought if the worst of the pandemic occurs, I might need to knead bread to eat bread at some point.  I have made honey wheat bread, rye bread, rye rolls, buttermilk rolls. I enjoy the ease of making Irish Soda Bread, but people are quick to tell me this is not a true "bread."  A few lessons, get fresh yeast as the rye rolls were tasty, but they didn't rise well and were more akin to ammunition than a roll.  Keep an eye on the recipe, baking bread is closer to chemistry than art, and the recipe measurements are important.  

10) Variety is the spice of life, don't judge.  This goes along with a few other posts.  We tend to, as humans, want to compare our lives and priorities with others.  You want to live in Manhattan near Central Park while someone else moved to the Jersey Shore. Instead of acknowledging both choices, we tend to compare and judge those choices.  We are a competitive lot.  There were times in my life and career where my ambition was as much about finishing first as it was about fulfilling my own goals and ambitions for my happiness.  I was lucky to receive several awards in my career, but the ones I remember the most were the competitive ones.  Finishing in the top three of AS/400 Sales 30 or more years ago, I remember that one.  I remember my first golden circle and can describe the steps that helped me make my first 100% club, but I don't remember the specifics around executive awards and more I received.  

The judging of other peoples' life choices needs to stop, or at least we need to try to stop.  If I judged my success by money in the bank, then compared to Bezos and Zuckerberg, my life is a failure.  I should be depressed.  I don't see the billions and millions in my future.  I may not be the brightest star in the universe, but I can hold my own usually.  I had moments at IBM, where I could see the potential of being an executive and chose not to.  Does that make me less of a person?  Should I be judged based on these choices, or should I be more judged as generally a happy person?  I wouldn't change my life to have the material things others have, and to be honest, I haven't met anyone I would like to change lives. Why judge my choices or those of others who have not chosen the same path as your own.  

We should use the pandemic to realize what really does matter in each of our lives.  Focus on our own journey and not judge others whose journey may not look like our own.  My advice is to focus on what will make your life happier and more content, and if we all do, this pandemic will have brought something good into the world.

I wish you all a very happy holiday season and a most joyous and healthy new year.