But never fear, newswatchers.  Part of my career was spent dissecting news articles.  So, I know how to spot BS and now you can too.  Here are 3 ways to spot it:

Some people say….

Some people say?  Who are those people?  Basically this phrase means “I can’t prove jack but I’ve got an opinion and I’d like to say it without letting you know it’s just my opinion.”

Some people say you’re a Communist.

Who are those people?

I don’t know…some people…you know, they send e-mails and stuff.

Some people say your news program sucks.

To me, it’s the same BS that the BS gurus pull with the “secrets they don’t want you to know.  Who are they? We’ll leave that up to your imagination.

Here is a thing about Fox News using this BS tactic.  But don’t for one minute think this is a Fox thing.  They ALL do it.  I hear it ALL THE TIME.  So, listen for it next time.

Mistakes were made…(why so passive?)

A writer knows there are two voices—the active and the passive.  Look at these sentences:

Jill burned the cake.

The cake was burned (by Jill).

One of those sentences completely lets Jill off the hook, while the other blames her.  Wanna know where a news organization stands on an issue?  Look where they assign blame in heir headlines.  Need an awesome example of the passive being used to take the blame off the speaker?  Here is this gem by former President George W Bush:

Lack of Context

Recently lack of context in “reporting” has been brought to the forefront with the whole Shirley Sherrod incident involving that blogger that I keep getting mixed up with Justin Bieber.  But the truth is this crap happens all the time.  How many times does the media put out crap without bothering to explain its context?  How many sound bites do you hear without wondering what was said afterwards? Do you even care?

Go on over to Media Matters.  They show clips of people on the right.  The clips can be informative, but I usually have no idea of what the context was.  Thus, the right looks unreasonable (and downright crazy)  in pretty much all the clips.  But sometimes when you view the whole clip, it doesn’t look so crazy anymore.

You can always tell when you’re being bullshitted when context is not provided.  In fact, whenever someone in the media expresses outrage over something another person has said, it’s best to ignore them.  They won’t give you the context to understand why something was said.  They don’t care.  It typically ruins their whole hour of ranting.

On the flip side, taking things out of context can be so much FUN!

A shoutout to the guys at Cracked for this awesome article that I read while researching media BS.Similar Posts:

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And for full disclosure, I read this book right after the surprisingly disappointing Linchpin by Seth Godin, which was touted as a book about being different.  Unlike, Linchpin,  I found this book to be a good read that actually made me think about what we mean by “different.”

Moon argues that most businesses talk about being different but don’t do anything to be different..  What they think is “different” is really one of two things:

1. Augmentation by addition: adding new features to a product
2. Augmentation by multiplication: adding new lines of product: diet coke, coke with lime, cherry coke, etc.

When brands try to be “different” they really end up doing the same thing as everyone else.

In “Different”, Moon takes use trough different types of brands:

Reverse-positioned brands: brands that take away something you want but give you something unexpected, like JetBlue that takes away first class and round trip tickets but gives everyone leather seats and an entertainment center.

Breakaway brands: brands that re-categorize their brands as something else, e.g. Hugggies turned a diaper into a “pull-up”..

Hostile brands: brands that flaunt the fact that the brand is not for everyone, e.g. Hollister has only sizes 0-9

She uses these brand types to guide us to her main point: being different is not just a marketing tactic, it is a way of thinking.

The Good

I like the way Moon starts out the book.  She realizes that in words used to categorize brands they should not be taken as gospel.  They are just a starting point—a frame of reference—to start a conversation.

I wish more books said that.  Categories are merely heuristics to build a framework.  I wish more books (Ahem, Malcolm Gladwell!) would state this clearly instead of making people run around trying to fit something into a framework that doesn’t quite fit.

Moon is very clear that she is not trying to deliver the be-all-end-all of “difference.”  She is giving you a place to start.  And this book did get me thinking about what it really means to be “different” rather than just telling me that I or my business should be different.

The Bad

This book is not a rah rah book. It doesn’t give a bunch of platitudes about how great it would be if your business were “different.”  If you are looking for something to motivate you this is NOT that book.

I see this as good, but this “you can go it” style without substance is what passes for a lot of business books these days.

Different is nothing like that.   But I found it to be an easy read with plenty of case studies to illustrate the point.

The Verdict

Get the book!(affiliate link).  If you’re in business, it would be a good resource for you to think about your brand.  If you are just interested in the idea of being different and trying to figure out what difference really is, I think you will also find this book worthwhile.

Not convinced?  You can read an excerpt from the author’s site.

And you can view the cool video trailer for the book.

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"I'll give 110% as I pre-plan to take your business to the next level. I have the bandwidth and the learning."

I’ve talked before about business jargon on more than one occasion.  But the worst offenders are the words and phrases that are completely meaningless.  What do I mean by “meaningless?”

Here’s what I mean:

I work in an international business setting.  We use English as the common language.  When these meaningless phrases come up, I usually have to “simplify” it.

I know people want to sounds smart, but think of what you’re saying sometimes.  If someone asks you, “What does that mean?” and you draw a blank..chances are you’re using meaningless business jargon.

I thought I’d throw out 5 of the worst offenders:

Pre-plan

This one boggles the mind.  Pre-plan?  Seriously.  Plan means to make a plan.  Are you telling me that you re planning to plan?  Another meaningless phrase, probably invented by the same guy who thinks that all-day meetings get results.

A: Let’s pre-plan and then plan and then have a meeting about the plan.

B: This calls for immediate discussion.

Instead say: plan

Give 110%

Maybe it’s because I hear this in sports a lot.  100% is the HIGHEST you can go.  I know someone is thinking that 110% means to give more than you can.  But dude…you can only give what you can, nothing more.

Instead say: give my best; do all I can

Take it to the next level

I seriously have no idea what this means.  It’s supposed to mean “make something better” but actually it doesn’t mean jack. Really..what is the “next level”?  What does it look like? What constitutes the “next level”?  Hell..no one knows. And no one wil tell you either because it takes away from the ability to ”motivate” and “sound inspiring” when really you sound stupid.

Instead say: improve

Bandwidth

Do you have the bandwidth for this project?  I don’t know.  Are you asking me to host your web site?  I AM NOT A COMPUTER!  I AM NOT A SERVER.

Instead say: capability

Learning

“I had a big learning from that project.”

Huh?

Some guy sent this to me one day and I thought English was his second language.  So, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.  But when I looked at who sent it.  Do you think he was a non-native speaker of English?

Nope!

He was using a fun new buzzword: learning as a noun.

Communicating clearly means sounding like you graduated from high school.  “Learning” doesn’t make the cut.

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His good luck is our bad luck

Someone once asked me something interesting.  He said, “if The Secret’ and all this stuff is not real, then why do so many rich people endorse it?”

I thought it was a good question.  So, here are two possible answers:

1. The “rich people” are the people who became rich selling Secret-related products

2. Rich people became rich first and then believed in The Secret.

We all know the number 1 people.  But what about number 2?

I don’t have any scientific data about this other than the fact that there were rich people running around before “The Secret” came about.  But I think the answer is easy.  Many successful people would rather attribute their success to their own effort rather than admit that luck played a role in it.  And the truth is luck often plays the biggest role.

Of course, saying that success and fame is ALL luck is wrong.  But ask yourself this: what can get your farther in life:

• Talent?
• Hard Work?
• Meeting the Right People?

Look.  There are a lot of hard-working and talented people out there.

But how many careers were launched on talent and hard work alone without the luck of not meeting the right people?

Let’s rattle off a few celebrities whose careers were launched by luck:

• Justin Bieber: the right guy clicked on his YouTube video
• Harrison Ford: installed cabinets for George Lucas before getting cast in his movies
• Marilyn Monroe: the right guy took her photo while she worked at a plant

And if you’re wondering if it’s only celebrities, look at how meeting the right people can get you much farther in business than being especially talented or hard-working:

• Henry Ford: the right guy forked over the money for Henry to start his company
• Nikola Tesla: guy invented almost everything (AC current, fluorescent light bulbs, the radio) and never made any money.  But most people DO know Thomas Edison (inventor of the light bulb), Marconi (inventor of radio).  Tesla met all the WRONG people, notably the aforementioned Mr. Edison who ripped him off.
• Edgar Allen Poe: Must have pissed off somebody…made 9 whole dollars from “The Raven” and died poor at 40.

In Outliers, Gladwell argued that “success” depends on cultural factors and other factors beyond your control (luck) and some within your control (10,000 hours of practice).  Though I’d even argue that the opportunity to practice something 10,000 hours involves luck as well. How many concert pianists/violinists come from poor families?

I don’t agree with everything Gladwell wrote in Outliers, but here’s the point:

My parents always told me “it’s not what you do but who you know.”

It was true when I was trying to get my first job and it’s true now.  I think a lot of people who became successful would rather not admit that luck played a role in their success and would rather think it was their “mindset”, “hard work” or something else that proves how great they are.

So, now some of you are going to be all mad at me and say, “Fine.  It’s all luck.  I shouldn’t do anything.”

But calm down..there is something you can do.  Go out there and meet people. Some people say “I make my own luck.”  They’re full of crap.

But you can put yourself in a position to get lucky.  You gotta go out and meet people.  Just go out there and create some positive ripples with people.  You never know what’ll happen.Similar Posts:

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Now, THAT got a laugh.

But the reason is simple.  Fred Rogers did what most people dream of: he spent his life doing the things he loved and at the same time made a positive impact on millions of people.  And he did it in an honest way without changing who he was (and by all accounts he was just the same off-camera that he was on-camera).

Who could ask for more?

But even more, I figure that I pretty much learned everything I needed to know from Mr. Rogers.

Fred Rogers and his TV show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood taught me more about life than most of those self-help guru/scammers out there.  And he did it for free!

So, what did I learn?  These are just some of the lessons I learned from Mr. Rogers.

You’re OK just the way you are

How much of the personal development stuff out there rests on the fact that there’s something wrong with you?  You’re too scared.  You’re not happy enough.  You don’t have enough money.

Trained marketers are taught to identify insecurity and sell to them.  A lot of what is pushed as “self-help” can make you feel lower than you really are in order to artificially pump you up higher than you are.

And is it really worth it?

What would Mr. Rogers say?
He likes you just because you’re you.
There was no one like you before you and there will be no one like you after you’re gone.

You are special.  And maybe, just maybe, you’re OK just the way you are.

Use Your Imagination

When there was a problem Mr. Rogers wanted to talk about, we took us to the land of make-believe.

Imagination is the key.

Things can be hard.  But we possess this awesome thing, this imagination.  We can use it in all sorts of ways.  There is not always one answer to every problem.  There are many ways we can deal with life.

And honestly, if more adults weren’t afraid to use their imaginations and be creative, we might be just a little bit happier.

Little can sometimes become big so don’t feel bad about small dreams

Most of the self-help stuff out there tells you to “dream big.”  It sounds like good advice, but then what about those who don’t want to dream big?  Or what if they are satisfied with their small dream?  To the self-helpers this is bad because people who are OK with what they have don’t spend money on courses on how to become super-wealthy

But if we’d listen to Mr. Rogers, he has the solution.  Small dreams are just as good as big dreams.  And little can sometimes become big.  So, you don’t need to worry about it so much.

“We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.”

I like this quote from Mr. Rogers.  In this one quote, he tells you for free what some people charge thousands of dollars to tell you: find your medium.  We all have different ways to express ourselves.  Mr. Rogers’ way was through television.

What is your way?

Be honest with yourself and others

I used to wonder whether Mr. Rogers had a bad temper or was a jerk off-camera.  But by all accounts, he was the same guy at home that he was in front of a camera.

Mr. Rogers thought he was successful because he was honest about who he was.  Some “programs” out there tell you that you have to be X in order to be successful.  I once saw a video where some hypnosis guru flat out told someone he’d never be a millionaire because he didn’t have the right “mindset”, i.e. he thought $5,000 was too much to spend on a seminar.

Mr. Rogers’ message is clear: be who you are and be the best you that you can be.

It’s not about what you do for yourself, it’s about what you do for others that makes you good.

I have many negative feelings about a lot of self-help because I think it should be written like this: SELF-help.

Make more money.  Attract wealth. Blah.  Blah.

Does it really matter?  Mt friend Steve Harper talks in his book The Ripple Effect about this.  He says that what you do for others is how you measure your success. And the impact you have on others makes the difference.

I agree.  What if we redefined how we measure our own worth and value?
What if we did not measure it in how much money we make or the titles we have?
What if we measured our value by the impact we have on others?

Mr. Rogers got this right.

It amazes me what an impact Mr. Rogers had on so many people.  When he passed away I remember hearing how people in Times Square suddenly started singing “It’s a beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

I remember switching to talk radio and hearing some commentator lambasting Mr. Rogers only to find that when he let people call in, the consensus was, “ I usually agree with you, but you’re nuts to say bad things about Mr. Rogers.”

The commenter finally changed the subject when he couldn’t even get ONE caller to agree with him.

Someone even composed a requiem for him.

Fred Rogers impacted everyone around him.  His message was simple and clear.  I think we’d all do well to listen to him today.  And it won’t cost you a thing.

“If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
Fred Rogers

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So, imagine my surprise when I read a book that hits upon a novel concept:

Manage ENERGY NOT TIME.

But did the concept live up to its billing?

The Good

I liked this book for 2 reasons:

#1 It offered compelling insights

#2 Unlike most books of this type, it didn’t rely on fluff to sell things. It actually had some substance.

They key insights in this book arre:

1. The key to high performance is energy not time
2. You must not overuse or underuse your energy
3. Press beyond limits to build capacity
4. Rituals, not discipline, is key

The authors use the metaphor of the athlete in this book and approach managing energy the same way athletes do.  They make a distinction between marathon and sprints.   The Power of Full Engagement says you should live your life like a sprint and do more when you have energy and then rest when you don’t.

The authors recommend breaking your day into 90-minute “sprints” with 15 minutes of rest.

I found this to be interesting given that in another book I read” The Brain Rules” it states that the brain cannot concentrate for long periods of time.  So, a break is good both mentally and physically.

The key they say is to keep your energy high in order to get things done,  you should tap into 4 sources of energy:

• physical (and includes strategies for “fueling the fire” through exercise, nutrition, and sleep),
• emotional (“transforming threat into challenge”),
• mental (“appropriate focus and realistic optimism”)
• spiritual (“having a ‘why’ to live”)

By combining these 4 sources of energy, the authors say you become fully engaged.

I like this book mostly because it shows a new way of dealing with things. Here is a chart from the book:

The second part of the book is related to showing how to do all this.

The Bad

I liked most of the book.  There are times when the authors rely on storytelling (one of the authors also wrote a book on the power of stories) instead of giving more information.  But I don’t think they went overboard and they don’t fall into inspiroof.   However, at times I was thinking that I would choke if I had to hear one more story.

One thing people may not like about the book is that its roots are in athletics and its training is like training “corporate athletes”.  I find that even though athletes are good to study, their realm is mainly physical more than mental.   Some things that work for them do not always translate into the “real” world.

Another thing is I think this book is longer than it needs to be.   I found it repetitive in some parts.  And the writing style can be dull, making the book harder to read in some spots than it needs to be.

The Verdict

Despite these problems, I definitely recommend this book. I put some of the things in this book into practice and found they work for me.  But I think the insights this book offers are worth the price of admission and a good place to start when thinking about time management.

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LeBron, you are NOT the father!

Imagine this:

You’ve just asked the woman of your dreams to marry you.  She demurs and says she has to think about it.

A few days later she calls you.  She says, “Drive down the highway and look for the giant billboard.  There is my answer.”

With a anticipation you drive down the highway and then you see it.

It says…

HELL NO.  I’LL NEVER MARRY YOU!

My advice to the young LeBron James is this:

I have no problem with playing basketball wherever you want.  You’re a free agent ,and you have a right to play wherever you feel like.

But if you’re going to humiliate someone (a city in this case), do it quietly.  You don’t go on national TV and laugh in their faces.

I don’t know who convinced you to go to TV to tell the whole world you’re leaving your hometown for greener pastures.

You did the same thing as the billboard girl.

Yeah, it can be pretty funny if it’s not happening to you.

But you’ll never ingratiate yourself to others by being a douchebag.  And this was a top D-bag move.

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