Leadership Lessons From The Great Books #59 – Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen w/Tom Libby

1
00:00:00,650 –> 00:00:04,058
You. Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells

2
00:00:04,074 –> 00:00:07,146
and this is the Leadership Lessons From The Great Books podcast,

3
00:00:07,338 –> 00:00:10,702
episode number 59, with,

4
00:00:10,756 –> 00:00:13,934
of course, our co-host today, Tom Libby. How you doing,

5
00:00:13,972 –> 00:00:17,520
Tom? Doing awesome. Happy to be here again.

6
00:00:18,930 –> 00:00:24,126
And we’re going to be covering today as

7
00:00:24,148 –> 00:00:28,200
we go into the merry month of May. We’re going to be covering today

8
00:00:29,130 –> 00:00:32,406
a book that is a meditation on

9
00:00:32,428 –> 00:00:36,274
the nature of decorum, which we don’t often talk about in our culture anymore.

10
00:00:36,402 –> 00:00:40,406
Politeness, appropriate conduct, and the misleading

11
00:00:40,438 –> 00:00:44,490
and ever-changing nature of that ever-deceptive human

12
00:00:44,560 –> 00:00:48,762
heart. Jane Austin’s Sense and

13
00:00:48,816 –> 00:00:52,126
Sensibility. Now, the version that I

14
00:00:52,148 –> 00:00:56,110
have that you can see on the video recording of this podcast

15
00:00:56,610 –> 00:01:00,314
was published by Arc Tourists Publishing

16
00:01:00,362 –> 00:01:04,254
and Arc Tourist Holdings Limited in 2022.

17
00:01:04,372 –> 00:01:07,570
So it’s a little bit of a little bit of an updated

18
00:01:08,630 –> 00:01:12,434
version of this book well, not updated version, but an updated edition of

19
00:01:12,472 –> 00:01:15,314
this book with a little bit of a different cover.

20
00:01:15,512 –> 00:01:19,286
It does clock in, since its sensibility does clock in at

21
00:01:19,388 –> 00:01:22,786
365 pages. So it’s

22
00:01:22,818 –> 00:01:26,374
definitely a mid level read. It’ll take if you’re reading it through,

23
00:01:26,412 –> 00:01:30,314
take about a month if you’re really clopping through to

24
00:01:30,432 –> 00:01:34,300
cover it. And, of course, our podcast today

25
00:01:34,830 –> 00:01:38,182
acts as an accompaniment to the podcast

26
00:01:38,246 –> 00:01:41,946
that we did where we covered Jane Austen last year and we

27
00:01:41,968 –> 00:01:45,950
talked about Dave Shepard’s The Annotated Persuasion.

28
00:01:46,770 –> 00:01:49,950
So I’m going to open from Sense and Sensibility,

29
00:01:50,290 –> 00:01:53,854
chapter one. I’m going to start right at the beginning and get

30
00:01:53,892 –> 00:01:57,486
right into it. The family of Dashwood

31
00:01:57,518 –> 00:02:01,314
had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their

32
00:02:01,352 –> 00:02:04,690
residence was at Norland Park, in the center of their property,

33
00:02:04,760 –> 00:02:07,918
where for many generations they had lived in so respectable a manner

34
00:02:08,014 –> 00:02:11,590
as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.

35
00:02:11,930 –> 00:02:14,806
The late owner of this estate was a single man who lived to a very

36
00:02:14,828 –> 00:02:17,926
advanced age and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and

37
00:02:17,948 –> 00:02:21,106
a housekeeper in his sister. But her death,

38
00:02:21,138 –> 00:02:24,826
which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home.

39
00:02:25,008 –> 00:02:28,282
For to supply her loss, he invited and received it to his house the family

40
00:02:28,336 –> 00:02:31,878
of his nephew, Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor

41
00:02:31,894 –> 00:02:35,680
of the Norland estate and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it

42
00:02:36,690 –> 00:02:40,094
in the society of his nephew and niece and their children.

43
00:02:40,212 –> 00:02:43,966
The old gentleman’s days were comfortably spent. His attachment to

44
00:02:43,988 –> 00:02:47,486
them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. And Mrs.

45
00:02:47,518 –> 00:02:50,834
Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from

46
00:02:50,872 –> 00:02:54,606
interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort

47
00:02:54,638 –> 00:02:58,038
which his age could receive. And the cheerfulness of

48
00:02:58,044 –> 00:03:02,486
the children added a relish to his existence by

49
00:03:02,508 –> 00:03:06,454
a former marriage. Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son by his present lady three

50
00:03:06,492 –> 00:03:09,734
daughters. The son, a steady, respectable young man,

51
00:03:09,772 –> 00:03:13,194
was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been

52
00:03:13,232 –> 00:03:17,626
large and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age by

53
00:03:17,648 –> 00:03:21,690
his own marriage likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his wealth.

54
00:03:22,190 –> 00:03:26,062
To him, therefore, the succession to the Norland estate was not so really

55
00:03:26,116 –> 00:03:29,406
important as to his sisters. For their fortune, independent of

56
00:03:29,428 –> 00:03:32,986
what might arise to them from their fathers inheriting that property could

57
00:03:33,028 –> 00:03:36,786
be but small. Their mother had

58
00:03:36,888 –> 00:03:40,066
nothing and their father only 7000 pounds in

59
00:03:40,088 –> 00:03:44,206
his own disposal. For the remaining moiety of his first wife’s fortune

60
00:03:44,238 –> 00:03:47,766
was also secured to her first child and he had only a

61
00:03:47,788 –> 00:03:51,762
life interest in it. The old gentleman

62
00:03:51,826 –> 00:03:55,174
died. His will was read and like almost every other

63
00:03:55,212 –> 00:03:58,786
will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure.

64
00:03:58,978 –> 00:04:02,166
He was neither so unjust nor so ungrateful as to leave his

65
00:04:02,188 –> 00:04:05,462
estate from his nephew. But he left it to him on such terms as

66
00:04:05,516 –> 00:04:09,090
destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr. Dashwood had wished

67
00:04:09,170 –> 00:04:12,494
for it more for the sake of his wife and daughters than for himself or

68
00:04:12,532 –> 00:04:15,806
his son. But to his son, and his son’s son, a child of four years

69
00:04:15,828 –> 00:04:18,782
old it was secured in such a way as to leave to himself no power

70
00:04:18,836 –> 00:04:21,902
of providing for those who were most dear to him and who most

71
00:04:21,956 –> 00:04:25,134
needed a provision by any change

72
00:04:25,172 –> 00:04:28,450
on the estate or by any sale of its valuable woods.

73
00:04:28,790 –> 00:04:32,846
The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits

74
00:04:32,878 –> 00:04:36,546
with his father and mother in Norland, had so far gained on the affections of

75
00:04:36,568 –> 00:04:39,926
his uncle by such attractions as are by no

76
00:04:39,948 –> 00:04:43,202
means unusual in children of two or three years old. An imperfect

77
00:04:43,266 –> 00:04:46,818
articulation and earnest desire of having his own way many cunning

78
00:04:46,834 –> 00:04:50,614
tricks and a great deal of noise as to outweigh all the value of

79
00:04:50,652 –> 00:04:53,834
all the attention which for years he had received from his niece and her

80
00:04:53,872 –> 00:04:57,434
daughters. He meant not to be unkind, however and

81
00:04:57,472 –> 00:05:00,714
as a mark of his affection for the three girls he left them

82
00:05:00,752 –> 00:05:04,282
1000 pounds apiece. Mr.

83
00:05:04,336 –> 00:05:07,838
Dashwood’s disappointment was at first severe but his temper was cheerful and sanguine and

84
00:05:07,844 –> 00:05:11,614
he might reasonably hope to live many years and by living economically lay by

85
00:05:11,652 –> 00:05:15,202
a considerable sum from the produce of an estate already large and capable of almost

86
00:05:15,256 –> 00:05:18,914
immediate improvement. But the fortune which had been so

87
00:05:18,952 –> 00:05:22,290
tardy and coming was his only 112 month.

88
00:05:22,440 –> 00:05:26,170
He survived his uncle no longer and 10,000 pounds,

89
00:05:26,270 –> 00:05:30,562
including the late legacies, was all that remained for his widow

90
00:05:30,706 –> 00:05:34,694
and daughters. His son was sent for

91
00:05:34,732 –> 00:05:38,406
as soon as his danger was known and to him Mr. Dashwood recommended with all

92
00:05:38,428 –> 00:05:42,378
the strength and urgency which illness could command the interest of his mother in law

93
00:05:42,464 –> 00:05:45,402
and sisters. Mr.

94
00:05:45,456 –> 00:05:48,666
John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the family but he

95
00:05:48,688 –> 00:05:51,738
was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time and he

96
00:05:51,744 –> 00:05:55,386
promised to do everything in his power to make them comfortable. His father was rendered

97
00:05:55,418 –> 00:05:59,166
easy by such an assurance, and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how

98
00:05:59,188 –> 00:06:02,480
much there might prudently be in his power to do for them.

99
00:06:03,090 –> 00:06:06,794
He was not an ill disposed young man, unless to be rather

100
00:06:06,852 –> 00:06:10,018
cold hearted and rather selfish is to be ill disposed. But he was in

101
00:06:10,024 –> 00:06:13,678
general well respected, for he conducted himself with propriety and the discharge

102
00:06:13,694 –> 00:06:17,618
of his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman,

103
00:06:17,794 –> 00:06:21,480
he might have been made still more respectable than he was.

104
00:06:21,930 –> 00:06:25,766
He might even have been made amiable himself, for he

105
00:06:25,788 –> 00:06:28,970
was very young when he married and very fond of his wife.

106
00:06:31,550 –> 00:06:35,450
But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature of himself,

107
00:06:36,270 –> 00:06:40,170
more narrow minded and selfish.

108
00:06:44,510 –> 00:06:48,234
There’s an awful lot there right at the opening of Sense and Sensibility,

109
00:06:48,282 –> 00:06:51,662
but it does lay the foundation for where we are going.

110
00:06:51,796 –> 00:06:55,454
It lays the foundation for the politeness and the decorum of the novel.

111
00:06:55,502 –> 00:06:59,922
And it is important to discuss inheritance and though

112
00:06:59,976 –> 00:07:04,100
twists and turns, because this sets the stage for future

113
00:07:04,470 –> 00:07:08,920
drama. We live in a time where

114
00:07:09,370 –> 00:07:13,042
we don’t really think too much about inheritance, but it does float

115
00:07:13,106 –> 00:07:16,790
around underneath our perceptions of

116
00:07:16,860 –> 00:07:20,546
fairness, justice, and what one generation owes

117
00:07:20,658 –> 00:07:24,314
another. When thinking about

118
00:07:24,352 –> 00:07:27,494
Sense and Sensibility, we of course, have to think about the literary life of Jane

119
00:07:27,542 –> 00:07:31,398
Austin. And well, if you go and visit the Wikipedia article

120
00:07:31,494 –> 00:07:34,714
about Sense and Sensibility, you will see, and I

121
00:07:34,752 –> 00:07:38,186
quote that Sense of Sensibility tells the story of the Dashwood

122
00:07:38,218 –> 00:07:41,678
sisters, Eleanor, age 19, and Mary Ann, age 16 and a

123
00:07:41,684 –> 00:07:45,518
half. As they come of age. They have an older half brother, John, and a

124
00:07:45,524 –> 00:07:47,870
younger sister, Margaret, age 13.

125
00:07:49,970 –> 00:07:53,678
Senses Sensibility has been adapted to film, radio, television, and it’s

126
00:07:53,694 –> 00:07:57,698
never really been out of print ever since its first print run of, get this,

127
00:07:57,864 –> 00:08:02,390
750 copies in the middle of 1813.

128
00:08:02,730 –> 00:08:05,986
It was Jane Austin’s first novel, and she was born

129
00:08:06,018 –> 00:08:10,550
in 1775 and died in July of 1817.

130
00:08:10,990 –> 00:08:14,234
And she had modest success as

131
00:08:14,272 –> 00:08:17,626
an author during her time. We mentioned this on our episode around

132
00:08:17,728 –> 00:08:21,542
Persuasion, but little fame

133
00:08:21,606 –> 00:08:24,950
during her lifetime, however posthumously,

134
00:08:25,030 –> 00:08:29,150
when Persuasion was published. She has launched in a J curve up,

135
00:08:29,220 –> 00:08:32,666
as they say, in startup culture and to the right. And she’s

136
00:08:32,698 –> 00:08:36,798
never really been out of print and never really been out of discussion, not amongst

137
00:08:36,814 –> 00:08:40,690
her feminist critics, not amongst folks looking for

138
00:08:40,760 –> 00:08:44,462
insight into 18th century

139
00:08:44,526 –> 00:08:48,126
class mores, and even the relationships

140
00:08:48,158 –> 00:08:52,398
between men and women in premodern English

141
00:08:52,494 –> 00:08:56,422
era. Senses Sensibility is written in an

142
00:08:56,476 –> 00:09:01,094
epistolary form, which I didn’t know what this meant, but apparently novels

143
00:09:01,142 –> 00:09:05,180
used to be written as if they were or modeled on

144
00:09:05,870 –> 00:09:09,020
the writing of letters right to each other.

145
00:09:10,270 –> 00:09:15,406
It’s almost as if the

146
00:09:15,428 –> 00:09:20,206
primary form of the novel in

147
00:09:20,228 –> 00:09:23,546
the 19th century and in the 18th century,

148
00:09:23,658 –> 00:09:27,682
that primary form, if it were updated to today,

149
00:09:27,816 –> 00:09:31,394
would be as if we would be writing a novel based on the types of

150
00:09:31,432 –> 00:09:33,842
emails or, dare I say,

151
00:09:33,896 –> 00:09:37,582
tweets we send to messages or text messages

152
00:09:37,646 –> 00:09:40,718
we send to each other. And by the way, Tom inserted

153
00:09:40,734 –> 00:09:44,166
text messages there. We are starting to see novels that do have a bit of

154
00:09:44,188 –> 00:09:47,298
that and that is starting to show up in movies and in film.

155
00:09:47,394 –> 00:09:51,158
And it’s less jarring than it was potentially back in the 1990s,

156
00:09:51,164 –> 00:09:54,794
early 2000s, when it first started showing up. But this

157
00:09:54,832 –> 00:09:58,394
epistolary form, the style of writing in which

158
00:09:58,432 –> 00:10:01,674
all of the action, dialogue and character interactions are

159
00:10:01,712 –> 00:10:05,366
reflected through letters sent from one or more of the characters

160
00:10:05,398 –> 00:10:08,894
to each other, is really the grounding. It’s really the basis of sense

161
00:10:08,932 –> 00:10:12,778
and sensibility. And so the chapters are short. They’re no more than four pages

162
00:10:12,874 –> 00:10:14,800
and they do move quite quickly.

163
00:10:15,990 –> 00:10:19,602
Austen overcame that form and began to

164
00:10:19,656 –> 00:10:22,210
cobble together the modern novel.

165
00:10:23,350 –> 00:10:27,506
So we’re going to talk about that today along with several other areas with,

166
00:10:27,608 –> 00:10:31,682
like I said before, our co host today, our regular co host, Tom Libby.

167
00:10:31,826 –> 00:10:35,222
So the first question that I have or the opener for today after

168
00:10:35,276 –> 00:10:37,800
my long Rample there is,

169
00:10:39,290 –> 00:10:42,726
Tom, why don’t we

170
00:10:42,748 –> 00:10:46,282
write letters anymore? And by the way, I was writing this script. It’s really

171
00:10:46,336 –> 00:10:49,994
weird. I was writing the script while my daughter in the other room down

172
00:10:50,032 –> 00:10:53,146
the hall around the corner is is clanking out. She found an

173
00:10:53,168 –> 00:10:57,102
old Corona typewriter somewhere in my house and is clanking out something

174
00:10:57,156 –> 00:11:00,714
on an old Corona typewriter. I tremble to ask white she’s

175
00:11:00,762 –> 00:11:03,834
doing, but I do hear the clickety, clickety, clickety,

176
00:11:03,882 –> 00:11:07,086
clicky, click. So why is it that

177
00:11:07,108 –> 00:11:08,910
no one sends letters anymore?

178
00:11:10,290 –> 00:11:13,666
It’s so weird. Like when I saw your

179
00:11:13,688 –> 00:11:17,566
outline for this podcast and I saw that question, my first instinct

180
00:11:17,598 –> 00:11:20,534
was, how in God’s green earth would I know?

181
00:11:20,652 –> 00:11:24,630
And then I thought to myself, well, why don’t I write letters anymore?

182
00:11:26,010 –> 00:11:29,174
Am I common enough of a thinker to think that

183
00:11:29,212 –> 00:11:32,780
if I have a reason behind this, that there’d be enough people?

184
00:11:33,150 –> 00:11:36,266
Anyway, I overthink a lot, everyone, just to let

185
00:11:36,288 –> 00:11:39,850
you know. So what happened to writing letter?

186
00:11:40,590 –> 00:11:46,526
It’s interesting that you asked that because my

187
00:11:46,548 –> 00:11:49,934
kids and I my children and I joke a lot about the fact that I

188
00:11:49,972 –> 00:11:53,866
actually remember the day that they announced

189
00:11:53,978 –> 00:11:57,226
the invention of the at sign for the emails.

190
00:11:57,258 –> 00:12:00,566
Right? Yes. Tom Libby t Libby,

191
00:12:00,698 –> 00:12:05,314
blah, blah, blah@whatever.com. Right. And I remember this going,

192
00:12:05,512 –> 00:12:08,910
who cares? No one’s going to do anything with

193
00:12:08,920 –> 00:12:12,326
this. This is going to be stupid. Right. Little that I know. And that’s probably

194
00:12:12,348 –> 00:12:14,840
why I’m not a millionaire with the stock market right now either.

195
00:12:16,890 –> 00:12:20,194
That’s right. But I think

196
00:12:20,252 –> 00:12:24,378
the simplest answer to this question honestly is because we have so

197
00:12:24,464 –> 00:12:27,100
many avenues to communicate at this point.

198
00:12:28,750 –> 00:12:33,340
And most of the avenues that we currently have to communicate are

199
00:12:34,350 –> 00:12:37,646
very quick and very quick to respond. Right.

200
00:12:37,668 –> 00:12:41,066
Like we were just joking about the text messages in the dialogue

201
00:12:41,098 –> 00:12:44,542
and books and whatnot. Right. So I can send you,

202
00:12:44,596 –> 00:12:48,980
Hasana, a text message of a very simple question or

203
00:12:50,230 –> 00:12:54,546
that you can respond to almost immediately. Right. So there’s literally seconds between

204
00:12:54,728 –> 00:12:58,326
responses. If I have something more in depth, I can write

205
00:12:58,348 –> 00:13:02,134
an email. Technically, if you want to

206
00:13:02,332 –> 00:13:06,002
use that as a form of a letter, sure. But it’s not truly

207
00:13:06,066 –> 00:13:07,430
a letter anymore.

208
00:13:12,350 –> 00:13:15,914
I think our mindset has started to change of what

209
00:13:15,952 –> 00:13:19,514
is personal and what is impersonal. Right?

210
00:13:19,552 –> 00:13:22,906
Like, for example, if I I could I could send my

211
00:13:22,928 –> 00:13:26,186
mom a letter, a word. Coming up on Mother’s Day my

212
00:13:26,208 –> 00:13:29,486
mother lives in Missouri. I can send my mother a

213
00:13:29,508 –> 00:13:32,378
letter saying, hey Mom, I was thinking about you. Happy Mother’s Day. Blah, blah,

214
00:13:32,394 –> 00:13:35,658
blah. And she could look at this and go, why wouldn’t

215
00:13:35,674 –> 00:13:38,210
you just send me a text? Or Why wouldn’t you just call me?

216
00:13:38,360 –> 00:13:41,442
Right. Because calling her on the phone

217
00:13:41,496 –> 00:13:45,566
and actually speaking to her is more personal than writing

218
00:13:45,598 –> 00:13:48,658
a letter. I don’t

219
00:13:48,664 –> 00:13:51,958
know. I think your mindset is changing to that direction, I guess, is my point.

220
00:13:52,044 –> 00:13:55,862
I don’t know. I handwrote a letter to my mother during

221
00:13:55,916 –> 00:13:58,440
COVID about something I can’t remember.

222
00:13:59,690 –> 00:14:03,302
But I mean, I even wrote in the letter.

223
00:14:03,446 –> 00:14:07,066
It’s been years since I actually did this. I don’t even think I know how

224
00:14:07,088 –> 00:14:11,706
to do cursive writing anymore, which I

225
00:14:11,728 –> 00:14:15,486
had beautiful penmanship, and it

226
00:14:15,508 –> 00:14:19,038
was very important that I have beautiful penmanship. I won’t get into why,

227
00:14:19,124 –> 00:14:22,730
but it was very important that I have beautiful readable penmanship

228
00:14:22,890 –> 00:14:27,054
and penmanship writing

229
00:14:27,102 –> 00:14:30,622
letters. I loved how you talked about the seconds between responses.

230
00:14:30,686 –> 00:14:32,180
I think that’s very important.

231
00:14:34,310 –> 00:14:37,618
We did a shorts episode that everybody should go back

232
00:14:37,624 –> 00:14:41,454
and listen to before they listen to this episode. Episode number 78,

233
00:14:41,512 –> 00:14:45,320
I think of the shorts episodes anyway, it doesn’t matter, but I talk about

234
00:14:46,170 –> 00:14:49,590
and it kind of relates to what you’re saying here. When you lose the small

235
00:14:49,660 –> 00:14:52,620
things, then the larger things aren’t far behind.

236
00:14:53,150 –> 00:14:56,826
And maybe it’s not losing the small things. Maybe it’s redefining what

237
00:14:56,848 –> 00:14:58,460
the small things are.

238
00:15:00,830 –> 00:15:04,638
Yes, but where I was going with this, by the way, is I think that

239
00:15:04,724 –> 00:15:08,414
mindset because I also think and I thought where you were going to

240
00:15:08,532 –> 00:15:14,320
go down, what path you were going to go down was that

241
00:15:15,570 –> 00:15:19,006
if I were to write a letter to an acquaintance, I’m not talking about my

242
00:15:19,028 –> 00:15:22,306
mom. I’m just somebody that I just know, I haven’t heard from in a long

243
00:15:22,328 –> 00:15:25,394
time. I’m not connected to them on Facebook or social media, whatever.

244
00:15:25,432 –> 00:15:29,140
Right. I wrote a letter because I had their old address sometimes,

245
00:15:29,510 –> 00:15:32,598
and this actually applies to me, too, sometimes when I get a

246
00:15:32,604 –> 00:15:35,606
letter in the mail, it’s almost like a wow factor now.

247
00:15:35,708 –> 00:15:38,934
Right. So we don’t use it for day to day

248
00:15:38,972 –> 00:15:41,990
communication anymore because we have this instant.

249
00:15:42,150 –> 00:15:45,974
So it’s not that people aren’t writing letters. They’re only writing

250
00:15:46,022 –> 00:15:49,334
them to get a different visceral response

251
00:15:49,382 –> 00:15:52,826
versus just a quick response or

252
00:15:52,848 –> 00:15:56,742
like an answer to a question. Whereas in Jane Austin’s

253
00:15:56,806 –> 00:16:00,238
error, you had to write a letter to get an answer to a question.

254
00:16:00,324 –> 00:16:03,646
Like, you had to send them a letter, then write the letter back and send

255
00:16:03,668 –> 00:16:06,930
it back. You could have a whole conversation that would take you a year.

256
00:16:07,080 –> 00:16:09,890
Right. It took them.

257
00:16:09,960 –> 00:16:14,340
So I think about the Revolutionary War and how the Revolutionary War

258
00:16:14,790 –> 00:16:18,414
was not won but run, how the operation

259
00:16:18,462 –> 00:16:22,774
of that war went, right? Sure. And for

260
00:16:22,812 –> 00:16:25,926
sure. Gutenberg printing press, I mean, whatever, 300 years

261
00:16:25,948 –> 00:16:28,440
of printing press already, everybody kind of knew what that was.

262
00:16:29,930 –> 00:16:32,838
It’s what’s going to be 300 years into the Internet. Like, we’re at the beginning

263
00:16:32,854 –> 00:16:36,346
of the Internet right now, 300 years now. Who the heck knows how

264
00:16:36,368 –> 00:16:38,860
they’ll be running the war with the Internet? Okay?

265
00:16:40,590 –> 00:16:44,622
But at that time, if you wanted to get orders from

266
00:16:44,676 –> 00:16:47,834
England about troop

267
00:16:47,882 –> 00:16:51,280
movements or things that needed to happen,

268
00:16:52,930 –> 00:16:55,874
you had to get a letter across the ocean, and it might not make it.

269
00:16:55,912 –> 00:16:59,666
The Atlantic is a big lake, and if it

270
00:16:59,688 –> 00:17:03,300
did make it, then you had to take get it on horseback to the actual

271
00:17:04,310 –> 00:17:08,374
battleground. And so you

272
00:17:08,412 –> 00:17:13,474
didn’t deliver military instructions

273
00:17:13,602 –> 00:17:17,426
via mail. You deliver

274
00:17:17,458 –> 00:17:20,658
them via horseback. You deliver via runner in the

275
00:17:20,684 –> 00:17:23,850
theater of battle. But the guys back in England,

276
00:17:24,670 –> 00:17:28,614
the politicians back there, they were arguing about things that had already occurred

277
00:17:28,662 –> 00:17:32,106
six months ago. Yeah, right, exactly. And so you

278
00:17:32,128 –> 00:17:35,946
had a lot of freedom in the field because there wasn’t that seconds

279
00:17:35,978 –> 00:17:39,242
between responses and that’s in a military

280
00:17:39,306 –> 00:17:43,194
context, in a social context. And Sense and Sensibility

281
00:17:43,242 –> 00:17:46,726
addresses some of this. Like, there’s a character in here, Edward,

282
00:17:46,778 –> 00:17:49,570
which we’ll talk about some of the characters in here, but the character, Edward,

283
00:17:50,070 –> 00:17:54,434
he just leaves and then magically shows up.

284
00:17:54,552 –> 00:17:57,140
Well, not magically, but shows up later on.

285
00:17:57,510 –> 00:17:59,860
And he’s like, yeah, I was riding around.

286
00:18:01,670 –> 00:18:06,086
This is the side. I pop in for

287
00:18:06,108 –> 00:18:09,286
a little cuppa, little cup of tea.

288
00:18:09,308 –> 00:18:12,806
Or you got another character in here who receives a letter,

289
00:18:12,998 –> 00:18:16,826
doesn’t explain to anybody what’s in the letter and

290
00:18:16,848 –> 00:18:20,380
then just busts out, just pieces out.

291
00:18:22,750 –> 00:18:26,654
I don’t think we’re going to cover that portion of the podcast today, but that

292
00:18:26,692 –> 00:18:30,030
is seen as such rudeness that he wouldn’t

293
00:18:30,370 –> 00:18:33,470
tell them what was in the letter.

294
00:18:36,050 –> 00:18:39,218
So they’re making up all these stories, and they’re king up all this gossip in

295
00:18:39,224 –> 00:18:42,180
their heads. And of course, they’re doing what people do basically now,

296
00:18:42,870 –> 00:18:46,606
human beings, right. And they’re building these monuments

297
00:18:46,638 –> 00:18:49,458
in their heads. And it turns out, of course, there’s something else later on in

298
00:18:49,464 –> 00:18:53,218
the novel, but it is funny because he holds

299
00:18:53,234 –> 00:18:56,566
that letter so close, and it is and you

300
00:18:56,588 –> 00:19:00,450
can see it in your head. It’s the 19th century handwritten letter,

301
00:19:00,610 –> 00:19:04,870
the whole script, whatever. And then he just pieces out and leaves.

302
00:19:05,530 –> 00:19:08,826
We have a version of that today, Hasan. We have a version of that.

303
00:19:08,848 –> 00:19:12,074
It’s called the screen lock. So if you don’t let anybody own what your screen

304
00:19:12,112 –> 00:19:14,060
lock is, they can’t read your text message.

305
00:19:15,390 –> 00:19:18,174
So, in other words, nothing has changed in 200 years.

306
00:19:18,292 –> 00:19:21,754
No, nothing’s changed in human communication at all. Very little has changed

307
00:19:21,882 –> 00:19:23,040
all the same thing.

308
00:19:25,570 –> 00:19:28,978
Well, this gets to sort of our second idea here, which we’ll cover here in

309
00:19:28,984 –> 00:19:31,540
a little bit, which sort of prefaces a little bit.

310
00:19:32,230 –> 00:19:35,170
So in a letter,

311
00:19:36,710 –> 00:19:40,470
you have to be politeness because you actually have to think about the words

312
00:19:40,540 –> 00:19:44,360
that you’re writing and how those words are going to impact somebody else.

313
00:19:44,970 –> 00:19:48,758
Because the paper is permanent, the ink is permanent. There’s a

314
00:19:48,764 –> 00:19:51,846
feeling of permanency that goes along with that thing. And this is why I like

315
00:19:51,868 –> 00:19:54,934
the novel, because there’s a feeling of permanency. That’s why I love books,

316
00:19:55,062 –> 00:19:59,290
even though no one reads anymore. But there’s this feeling of permanent

317
00:20:00,430 –> 00:20:03,806
feeling of permanency with a book, whereas with a text or

318
00:20:03,828 –> 00:20:07,854
a tweet or an email, if I lose my Google

319
00:20:07,892 –> 00:20:12,080
Workspace account, that’s like 50,000 emails, they’re just by

320
00:20:13,410 –> 00:20:16,786
gone, and Google will just google is not going to get them back for me.

321
00:20:16,808 –> 00:20:19,826
Google doesn’t care. There’s no, like 1800 number for me

322
00:20:19,848 –> 00:20:21,620
to call to get those emails back.

323
00:20:26,310 –> 00:20:28,450
That sense of impermanency.

324
00:20:31,990 –> 00:20:35,318
And I love how you talk about the visceral nature of getting a letter and

325
00:20:35,324 –> 00:20:39,042
the visceral emotion that’s attached to that. Yeah. The reaction.

326
00:20:39,106 –> 00:20:42,858
Do you think that that’s because of that impermanency? Like we’re so familiar with

327
00:20:42,864 –> 00:20:44,300
the impermanency now?

328
00:20:46,510 –> 00:20:48,860
Yeah, absolutely. Because again,

329
00:20:49,790 –> 00:20:52,998
one of the things I find myself doing lately well, I shouldn’t

330
00:20:53,014 –> 00:20:56,526
say lately, I’ve been doing it all along, but it’s been

331
00:20:56,548 –> 00:21:00,478
on the forefront of my mind lately is saving that stuff,

332
00:21:00,564 –> 00:21:03,834
right? My mom will send me a birthday

333
00:21:03,882 –> 00:21:07,902
card, and I now save that. Whereas 25,

334
00:21:07,956 –> 00:21:10,818
30 years ago, I would have probably not saved it. I would have been like,

335
00:21:10,824 –> 00:21:14,082
oh, it’s just a card, whatever, right? Because I’ll get another one next year.

336
00:21:14,136 –> 00:21:18,242
And now it’s like that handwritten note inside the card

337
00:21:18,296 –> 00:21:21,938
from my mom. That’s what I want to remember when I have Alzheimer’s and

338
00:21:21,944 –> 00:21:24,806
I can’t remember my own name. I want to be able to open that up

339
00:21:24,828 –> 00:21:28,102
and go, oh my God, I remember how much I loved her, or whatever,

340
00:21:28,156 –> 00:21:32,226
right? So now I got a box. I got a box that I have birthday

341
00:21:32,258 –> 00:21:35,754
cards, Father’s Day cards, Christmas cards from all the

342
00:21:35,792 –> 00:21:39,270
people who are important in my life. And I do it because it’s

343
00:21:39,350 –> 00:21:43,180
and I have them almost in sequential order, like timeline order, so to speak,

344
00:21:43,870 –> 00:21:46,746
because I fear I got to tell you, out of all the things I fear

345
00:21:46,778 –> 00:21:49,850
in my life, I don’t fear death. I have no fear of death.

346
00:21:49,930 –> 00:21:53,914
I don’t fear failing. As a matter of fact, I encourage

347
00:21:53,962 –> 00:21:58,526
failing because that’s how you learn probably the most life lessons I lear Alzheimer’s

348
00:21:58,638 –> 00:22:01,906
being able to be trapped in your own mind and not

349
00:22:01,928 –> 00:22:05,438
being able to know, understand or identify

350
00:22:05,534 –> 00:22:08,386
what’s going on around you, but still physically be okay.

351
00:22:08,568 –> 00:22:11,846
petrifies me. One of the ways you can combat this

352
00:22:11,948 –> 00:22:15,458
is doing what I’m doing and having things I’m

353
00:22:15,474 –> 00:22:19,026
not certain I’m going to remember how to use a computer. So saving emails

354
00:22:19,058 –> 00:22:22,826
or saving text messages probably not going to matter.

355
00:22:22,928 –> 00:22:26,662
But saving tangible holdable cards,

356
00:22:26,726 –> 00:22:30,330
letters, it’s going to matter. It’s going to matter when I get to that age.

357
00:22:30,480 –> 00:22:33,686
Knock on wood. Hopefully I don’t ever get truly Alzheimer’s,

358
00:22:33,718 –> 00:22:37,546
but hopefully that stuff matters. And to your .1

359
00:22:37,568 –> 00:22:40,958
of the things I spent a lot of time in senior health care, by the

360
00:22:40,964 –> 00:22:44,238
way. So that’s why this stuff scares the crap out of me. But one of

361
00:22:44,244 –> 00:22:47,026
the things they talk about all the time is when people do have Alzheimer’s or

362
00:22:47,048 –> 00:22:51,634
dementia, especially severe dementia, it’s not about what

363
00:22:51,672 –> 00:22:55,842
they think or what they know. It’s about how they feel when somebody

364
00:22:55,896 –> 00:22:59,394
walks into a room and they don’t recognize them, but they know they feel

365
00:22:59,432 –> 00:23:03,286
good when they see them. That’s what’s important to

366
00:23:03,308 –> 00:23:06,806
them. So I worry about that stuff. And to your point, the value of this

367
00:23:06,828 –> 00:23:10,162
stuff, the value of the handwritten, whatever it is, whether it’s a letter,

368
00:23:10,226 –> 00:23:13,546
a birthday card, Christmas card, whatever, I find that they’re going

369
00:23:13,568 –> 00:23:16,410
to become more and more valuable as we go along,

370
00:23:16,560 –> 00:23:19,180
not less and less. Yeah, I think you’re right.

371
00:23:20,430 –> 00:23:23,914
It goes to this idea of not how

372
00:23:23,952 –> 00:23:26,974
do you want to be remembered, but how do you want to

373
00:23:27,012 –> 00:23:30,122
remember, which is fundamental,

374
00:23:30,186 –> 00:23:33,278
right? And I know we’re a leadership podcast, and we’ll get

375
00:23:33,284 –> 00:23:36,654
to the leadership elements here that are in Sense and Sensibility, because there

376
00:23:36,692 –> 00:23:39,954
are leadership elements in Sense and Sensibility here,

377
00:23:39,992 –> 00:23:44,414
particularly around politeness and decorum. I think those are critical

378
00:23:44,462 –> 00:23:48,510
things that don’t very often get talked about, and this is where Austen really shines.

379
00:23:48,670 –> 00:23:52,326
But this idea of the epistolary form

380
00:23:52,428 –> 00:23:55,926
as a novel and then taking that form and turning it into something that’s more

381
00:23:55,948 –> 00:23:59,800
permanent in order to attach meaning to it, and now,

382
00:24:00,650 –> 00:24:04,054
well over 200 years later, we’re at a point where impermanence

383
00:24:04,102 –> 00:24:07,546
is everywhere. And so how do you hold on to that? I think

384
00:24:07,568 –> 00:24:11,660
that’s I think that’s a critical that’s a critical thing because

385
00:24:13,650 –> 00:24:17,274
we built these weird digital towers to ourselves

386
00:24:17,402 –> 00:24:21,662
online, and yet we

387
00:24:21,716 –> 00:24:25,242
also have this fear inside of us that no one’s going to care

388
00:24:25,316 –> 00:24:26,500
in 200 years.

389
00:24:30,630 –> 00:24:34,146
Just like 1000 years ago, no one really

390
00:24:34,168 –> 00:24:37,550
cared about the medieval guy who was struggling on

391
00:24:37,560 –> 00:24:41,666
the farm in Europe or hunting

392
00:24:41,858 –> 00:24:44,866
in Africa or riding

393
00:24:44,898 –> 00:24:48,706
a horse along the steps in Asia. Those people are died

394
00:24:48,738 –> 00:24:51,530
unrecorded with their voices unheard.

395
00:24:52,430 –> 00:24:56,246
And that’s been the massive tip that’s

396
00:24:56,278 –> 00:24:59,466
the normal thing in human nature is

397
00:24:59,488 –> 00:25:02,678
for human beings or not even human nature, but in human existence, the normal

398
00:25:02,694 –> 00:25:05,786
thing is to be forgotten. And the people who remember you are the people in

399
00:25:05,808 –> 00:25:08,762
your community, the people in your family, the people in your tribe.

400
00:25:08,826 –> 00:25:11,440
And by the way, those are the people that you remember.

401
00:25:13,010 –> 00:25:14,800
Those are the people that you remember.

402
00:25:17,510 –> 00:25:19,460
I think you’re onto something here.

403
00:25:21,590 –> 00:25:25,234
I should probably save more of my Christmas cards because normally I do

404
00:25:25,272 –> 00:25:28,180
normally I just throw that stuff away or I’ll like,

405
00:25:29,110 –> 00:25:32,680
yeah, I don’t think I would have to rethink that now.

406
00:25:34,490 –> 00:25:35,560
You’re welcome.

407
00:25:38,810 –> 00:25:42,380
Maybe we all get insights on this podcast. It’s good for everybody.

408
00:25:44,990 –> 00:25:48,540
All right, back to the book. Back to

409
00:25:49,150 –> 00:25:52,614
Sense and Sensibility. So we’re going to move ahead

410
00:25:52,672 –> 00:25:56,750
a little bit. And Sir John Dashwood

411
00:25:58,370 –> 00:26:02,030
has now moved his family into Norland estate.

412
00:26:02,770 –> 00:26:06,850
And Mrs. Dashwood, the widow of Sir John’s

413
00:26:07,430 –> 00:26:08,660
father there,

414
00:26:11,270 –> 00:26:14,670
has now been moved to another estate named

415
00:26:14,750 –> 00:26:18,054
Barton Park. So we’re going to pick

416
00:26:18,092 –> 00:26:22,470
up with Mrs. Dashwood King

417
00:26:22,540 –> 00:26:27,160
there in Barton Park. And so Mrs. Dashwood’s daughters are

418
00:26:27,690 –> 00:26:29,240
the three that we mentioned,

419
00:26:30,890 –> 00:26:34,014
eleanor, Mary, Ann and Margaret.

420
00:26:34,082 –> 00:26:37,402
Okay. And so they’re living in Barton Park. They’re just moving in,

421
00:26:37,536 –> 00:26:40,634
and we’re going to pick them up here because there’s a point

422
00:26:40,672 –> 00:26:44,454
that I want to make about, well, about politeness,

423
00:26:44,502 –> 00:26:48,138
about the small things. So back to sense and sensibility.

424
00:26:48,234 –> 00:26:51,386
The arrival of a new family in the country was always a matter of joy

425
00:26:51,418 –> 00:26:55,440
to him. By the way, the hymn is Sir John,

426
00:26:56,290 –> 00:26:59,930
the owner of Barton. So the arrival of a new family in the

427
00:26:59,940 –> 00:27:02,482
country was always a matter of joy to him. And in every point of view,

428
00:27:02,536 –> 00:27:06,382
he was charmed with the inhabitants he had now procured for his cottage

429
00:27:06,446 –> 00:27:09,522
at Barton. The Ms. Dashwoods were young,

430
00:27:09,576 –> 00:27:13,366
pretty and unaffected. It was enough to secure his good

431
00:27:13,388 –> 00:27:16,806
opinion, for to be unaffected was all that a pretty girl could want, to make

432
00:27:16,828 –> 00:27:19,080
her mind as captivating as her person.

433
00:27:20,010 –> 00:27:23,474
The friendliness of his disposition made him happy in accommodating

434
00:27:23,522 –> 00:27:26,634
those whose situation might be considered in comparison with the past as

435
00:27:26,672 –> 00:27:30,054
unfortunate. In shooing kindness to his cousins, therefore,

436
00:27:30,102 –> 00:27:33,386
he had the real satisfaction of a good heart, and in settling a family of

437
00:27:33,408 –> 00:27:36,666
females only in his cottage, he had all the satisfaction

438
00:27:36,698 –> 00:27:40,414
of a sportsman. For a sportsman, though he esteems only those of his

439
00:27:40,452 –> 00:27:43,566
sex who are sportsmen, likewise is not often desirous of

440
00:27:43,588 –> 00:27:47,650
encouraging their taste by admitting them to a residence within his own manner.

441
00:27:50,150 –> 00:27:53,714
Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were met at the door of the house by Sir

442
00:27:53,752 –> 00:27:57,358
John, who welcomed them to Barton Park with unaffected sincerity.

443
00:27:57,534 –> 00:28:01,058
And as he attended them to the drawing room, repeated to

444
00:28:01,064 –> 00:28:04,054
the young ladies the concern which the same subject had drawn from him the day

445
00:28:04,092 –> 00:28:07,254
before at being unable to get any smart young men to meet

446
00:28:07,292 –> 00:28:10,534
them. They would see, he said, only one gentleman there

447
00:28:10,572 –> 00:28:14,026
beside himself, a particular friend who was staying at the park, but who was

448
00:28:14,048 –> 00:28:17,754
neither very young nor very gay. He hoped they would all

449
00:28:17,792 –> 00:28:21,338
excuse the smallness of the party and could assure them it should never happen so

450
00:28:21,424 –> 00:28:24,778
again. He had been to several families that morning in hopes

451
00:28:24,794 –> 00:28:28,682
of procuring some addition to their number, but it was moonlighting.

452
00:28:28,746 –> 00:28:32,030
It was moonlight, and everybody was full of engagements.

453
00:28:32,610 –> 00:28:36,062
Luckily Lady Middleton’s mother had arrived at Barton within the last

454
00:28:36,116 –> 00:28:39,710
hour and as she was a very cheerful, agreeable woman, he hoped the young ladies

455
00:28:39,790 –> 00:28:43,634
would not find it so very dull as they might imagine. The young

456
00:28:43,672 –> 00:28:47,326
ladies, as well as their mother, were perfectly satisfied with having two entire strangers

457
00:28:47,358 –> 00:28:50,280
of the party and wished for no more.

458
00:28:51,130 –> 00:28:54,194
Mrs. Jennings, lady Middleton’s mother, was a good humored,

459
00:28:54,242 –> 00:28:57,254
merry, fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal,

460
00:28:57,372 –> 00:29:00,562
seemed very happy and rather vulgar.

461
00:29:00,706 –> 00:29:04,166
She was full of jokes and laughter, and for dinner was over had said many

462
00:29:04,188 –> 00:29:07,706
witty things on a subject of lovers and husbands hoped they had not left their

463
00:29:07,728 –> 00:29:10,854
hearts behind them in Sussex, and pretended to see them blush,

464
00:29:10,902 –> 00:29:14,298
whether they did or not. Mary Anne was vexed at

465
00:29:14,304 –> 00:29:17,694
it for her sister’s sake, and turned her eyes towards Eleanor to see how she

466
00:29:17,732 –> 00:29:21,454
bore these attacks with an earnestness which gave Eleanor far more pain

467
00:29:21,492 –> 00:29:24,874
than could arise from such commonplace raillery as Mrs.

468
00:29:24,922 –> 00:29:28,702
Jennings. Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John,

469
00:29:28,756 –> 00:29:31,918
seemed no more adapted by resemblance of any manner to be his friend than Lady

470
00:29:31,934 –> 00:29:35,278
Middleton was to be his wife or Mrs. Jennings to be Lady Middleton’s

471
00:29:35,294 –> 00:29:38,654
mother. He was silent and grave. His appearance,

472
00:29:38,702 –> 00:29:42,246
however, was not unpleasing, in spite of his being, in the opinion of Marianne and

473
00:29:42,268 –> 00:29:45,782
Margaret, an absolute old bachelor for he was on the wrong side

474
00:29:45,836 –> 00:29:49,522
of five and thirding. But though his face was not handsome,

475
00:29:49,586 –> 00:29:53,542
his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentleman

476
00:29:53,606 –> 00:29:57,066
like. There was nothing in any of the party which

477
00:29:57,088 –> 00:30:00,874
could recommend them as companions to the Dashwoods. But the cold insipidity of

478
00:30:00,912 –> 00:30:04,966
Lady Middleton was so particularly repulsive, that in comparison

479
00:30:05,078 –> 00:30:08,506
of it to the gravity of Colonel Brandon and even the boisterous

480
00:30:08,538 –> 00:30:12,074
mirth of Sir John and his mother in law, was interesting. Lady Middleton

481
00:30:12,122 –> 00:30:15,342
seemed to be roused to enjoyment only by the entrance of her four noisy children

482
00:30:15,396 –> 00:30:18,722
after dinner, who pulled her about, tore her clothes and put an end

483
00:30:18,776 –> 00:30:21,940
to every kind of discourse except what related to themselves.

484
00:30:22,950 –> 00:30:26,226
In the evening Marianne was discovered to be musical. She was

485
00:30:26,248 –> 00:30:29,726
invited to play. The instrument was unlocked, everybody prepared to be charmed.

486
00:30:29,758 –> 00:30:33,206
And Marianne, who sang very well at their request, went through the chief of the

487
00:30:33,228 –> 00:30:36,626
songs which Lady Middleton had brought into the family on her marriage,

488
00:30:36,738 –> 00:30:39,958
and which perhaps had lain ever since in the same position on the

489
00:30:39,964 –> 00:30:43,226
piano fort. For her ladyship had celebrated that event by

490
00:30:43,248 –> 00:30:47,386
giving up music, although by her mother’s account she had

491
00:30:47,408 –> 00:30:51,578
played extremely well and by her. Own was very

492
00:30:51,744 –> 00:30:53,120
fond of it.

493
00:30:57,720 –> 00:31:01,012
A lot of dynamics going on in that

494
00:31:01,146 –> 00:31:05,972
little section, that little piece that’s only like two pages of

495
00:31:06,106 –> 00:31:10,024
Sense and Sensibility. Lot of dynamics in there.

496
00:31:10,062 –> 00:31:13,396
There’s dynamics of interpersonal politeness, there’s dynamics

497
00:31:13,428 –> 00:31:17,336
of decorum. What does it mean to

498
00:31:17,438 –> 00:31:21,256
tell the truth to people? Should they have called out

499
00:31:21,278 –> 00:31:24,604
Lady Middleton as being an insipid boar? Or should they have just

500
00:31:24,642 –> 00:31:27,740
let her go? And would that have changed anything?

501
00:31:27,810 –> 00:31:31,352
Anyway, in our modern era,

502
00:31:31,416 –> 00:31:35,356
white, we like to speak truth to power where the personal is political.

503
00:31:35,548 –> 00:31:39,580
We believe that politeness represents oppression

504
00:31:39,740 –> 00:31:43,616
or not living out your quote unquote full self, whatever the

505
00:31:43,638 –> 00:31:47,804
hell that may mean, right? I’ve also recently

506
00:31:47,852 –> 00:31:51,252
heard, or maybe I’ve read it on Twitter from people

507
00:31:51,306 –> 00:31:54,768
who are pushing certain agendas

508
00:31:54,864 –> 00:31:58,240
very hard and ideological positions very hard. They’re going,

509
00:31:58,330 –> 00:32:01,496
as we used to say back in street ball, hard to the hoop on

510
00:32:01,518 –> 00:32:04,856
this one. But I’ve heard that politeness is part

511
00:32:04,878 –> 00:32:07,240
of the structure of white supremacy.

512
00:32:09,980 –> 00:32:12,808
Okay, this is nonsense,

513
00:32:12,904 –> 00:32:16,936
though. Once decorum and politeness

514
00:32:16,968 –> 00:32:20,952
is abandoned, we see the creeping specter of tyrannical behavior.

515
00:32:21,016 –> 00:32:25,132
But it’s tyrannical behavior at its lowest level, right? It’s tyrannical behavior.

516
00:32:25,196 –> 00:32:28,304
It’s tyrannical posture in places where

517
00:32:28,342 –> 00:32:32,864
it shouldn’t be. Family, friends, relationships. I mean,

518
00:32:33,062 –> 00:32:36,344
how many articles do you read every Thanksgiving

519
00:32:36,492 –> 00:32:40,484
when people are written for people to be able

520
00:32:40,522 –> 00:32:44,036
to talk about politics around the Thanksgiving table so we

521
00:32:44,058 –> 00:32:47,430
won’t be so polarized. Look,

522
00:32:47,880 –> 00:32:51,256
politeness and decorum, the way that it’s framed in

523
00:32:51,278 –> 00:32:54,776
Sense and Sensibility may to our ears sound as though it is

524
00:32:54,798 –> 00:32:58,360
full of constraints and not allowing people to be their full self.

525
00:32:58,430 –> 00:33:01,852
But that king of constraint from 200 years ago

526
00:33:01,906 –> 00:33:05,576
is in exact opposition to the idea that the personal is political.

527
00:33:05,768 –> 00:33:09,164
Some things are too private, too personal, or even too

528
00:33:09,202 –> 00:33:13,564
beyond the boundaries of decorum to discuss and

529
00:33:13,602 –> 00:33:16,896
should probably be left in that box of the

530
00:33:16,918 –> 00:33:20,956
private and the unspoken. But as we have expanded

531
00:33:20,988 –> 00:33:24,348
the franchise and as the unspoken things now won’t shut

532
00:33:24,364 –> 00:33:28,236
the hell up, well, we’ve gotten

533
00:33:28,268 –> 00:33:29,860
ourselves in a little bit of trouble.

534
00:33:31,240 –> 00:33:35,028
This is a challenge for leaders, right? How do you set up the terms of

535
00:33:35,034 –> 00:33:38,212
the team? How do you set up the environment when everybody

536
00:33:38,266 –> 00:33:41,672
wants to talk about everything, including, well, the three main

537
00:33:41,726 –> 00:33:45,096
things you once never talked about sex, religion and

538
00:33:45,118 –> 00:33:48,840
money. Everybody. And by the way, we replace religion with politics now.

539
00:33:48,910 –> 00:33:51,310
So sex, politics and money, right?

540
00:33:54,960 –> 00:33:59,176
How can leaders replace politeness? How can they come get back to politeness

541
00:33:59,208 –> 00:34:01,710
and decorum. How do we get back to there from here?

542
00:34:03,540 –> 00:34:06,656
Well, it’s funny do you

543
00:34:06,678 –> 00:34:10,924
say that because that white supremacy

544
00:34:10,972 –> 00:34:14,428
comment, I’m dead.

545
00:34:14,604 –> 00:34:18,260
I am not kidding you. I see it on Twitter.

546
00:34:19,000 –> 00:34:22,324
I’ve never really thought about that. Politeness as a

547
00:34:22,362 –> 00:34:26,064
I forget how you worded it. Honestly. Politeness. Politeness as a politeness

548
00:34:26,112 –> 00:34:29,572
as a structural act of white supremacy. White supremacy.

549
00:34:29,716 –> 00:34:31,240
So let me get this straight.

550
00:34:32,620 –> 00:34:36,744
I’m dumbfounded by this one. I got to be honest. So people

551
00:34:36,782 –> 00:34:39,912
are in their brain thinking that somebody who’s being

552
00:34:39,966 –> 00:34:41,230
polite to you,

553
00:34:45,680 –> 00:34:49,900
that’s part of the system of racism. That’s the systematic

554
00:34:50,560 –> 00:34:54,588
just being polite. You’d rather me be rude? I’m sorry.

555
00:34:54,754 –> 00:34:57,330
I want to make sure I understand this. Oh, no,

556
00:34:59,780 –> 00:35:03,104
here’s the framing. I can go into these

557
00:35:03,142 –> 00:35:05,968
people’s heads. So let me go into these people’s heads and walk around for a

558
00:35:05,974 –> 00:35:08,916
little bit here for you, just for a. Second, because I want to get back

559
00:35:08,938 –> 00:35:12,816
to the question. Yeah. So politeness

560
00:35:12,848 –> 00:35:16,500
and decorum by these people’s. Framing is

561
00:35:16,570 –> 00:35:19,972
seen as a method of oppression. And all oppression

562
00:35:20,036 –> 00:35:23,924
by the feminist sum

563
00:35:23,972 –> 00:35:27,524
of the feminist theorizing of oppression. All oppression

564
00:35:27,572 –> 00:35:31,404
is structurally based on power. And so when you are

565
00:35:31,442 –> 00:35:36,216
oppressing people from talking about things that are core

566
00:35:36,248 –> 00:35:41,512
to their identity, you are engaged in a position of labeling

567
00:35:41,576 –> 00:35:44,912
and a position of power. And usually that position

568
00:35:44,966 –> 00:35:48,640
of power is patriarchal. And usually the dominant group,

569
00:35:48,790 –> 00:35:52,480
which is from again, they’re framing the white

570
00:35:52,550 –> 00:35:57,200
male Christian dominant group. They are framing

571
00:35:57,540 –> 00:36:00,724
that lack of conversation in an attempt to

572
00:36:00,762 –> 00:36:04,612
engage in a power, to engage in hierarchical power

573
00:36:04,666 –> 00:36:07,572
games, which we’re going to talk about hierarchy in a minute, but in hierarchical power

574
00:36:07,626 –> 00:36:11,430
games that oppress everybody

575
00:36:11,820 –> 00:36:15,656
who is outside of those dominant power structures from living their full self. That was

576
00:36:15,678 –> 00:36:18,744
a way longer explanation, but that’s where they’re coming from.

577
00:36:18,862 –> 00:36:21,912
But at the risk of sounding like I’m validating,

578
00:36:21,976 –> 00:36:25,516
which I’m not, I kind

579
00:36:25,538 –> 00:36:29,228
of get it now the way that you framed it. I’m just saying I at

580
00:36:29,234 –> 00:36:32,350
least understand. You can understand.

581
00:36:33,200 –> 00:36:36,844
I’m not saying I agree with it, but okay. At least now I get

582
00:36:36,882 –> 00:36:39,356
a little bit of the insights of it now. And just to remind the viewers

583
00:36:39,388 –> 00:36:42,992
who are looking at this video, please do not let the skin color

584
00:36:43,046 –> 00:36:46,636
fool you. I am of Native American descent, so when Hasan

585
00:36:46,668 –> 00:36:50,550
talks about white supremacy and stuff like that, I’m not taking offense to it.

586
00:36:51,080 –> 00:36:53,110
I just want to be clear on this.

587
00:36:54,840 –> 00:36:58,672
Those of you who are listening to the audio, clear diction

588
00:36:58,816 –> 00:37:02,196
is not a symbol of white supremacy. Yes, I want to be

589
00:37:02,218 –> 00:37:05,656
very clear on this. Clear diction is a sign that you have the skill of

590
00:37:05,678 –> 00:37:08,868
speaking a particular language. I would want clear addiction

591
00:37:08,964 –> 00:37:12,948
if I was speaking Swahili. I would want clear diction if I were speaking Japanese.

592
00:37:13,044 –> 00:37:16,472
I would want clear diction if I were speaking Spanish. Clear diction

593
00:37:16,536 –> 00:37:19,784
is a sign of education. It is a sign of respect,

594
00:37:19,832 –> 00:37:23,310
honestly, for the language and decorum. But anyway, moving on.

595
00:37:24,900 –> 00:37:28,800
How do leaders reclaim politeness in decorum? Listen, it takes

596
00:37:28,870 –> 00:37:32,496
no effort to be polite to somebody. I mean, I’ve been in

597
00:37:32,518 –> 00:37:35,440
I’ve been in environments where I’m firing five people,

598
00:37:35,510 –> 00:37:39,364
and when they walk out the room, they’re smiling and not

599
00:37:39,402 –> 00:37:43,044
happy that they got fired. But you do

600
00:37:43,082 –> 00:37:46,368
not have to be rude crude or miserable

601
00:37:46,544 –> 00:37:49,876
to get your point across, and you certainly don’t. This one kind

602
00:37:49,898 –> 00:37:53,172
of stood out to me, too, when you sent me the outline of the podcast

603
00:37:53,236 –> 00:37:56,808
today, because I’m like, how can leaders reclaim? What is there to reclaim? You should

604
00:37:56,814 –> 00:37:59,000
have been doing it from day one and ongoing.

605
00:37:59,740 –> 00:38:02,860
Well, I think we wind up in a space of polar.

606
00:38:03,840 –> 00:38:07,468
This is that whole Marshall McLuhan the personal is political thing taking all

607
00:38:07,474 –> 00:38:11,070
the way to the bottom level of, like, a thimble full of water.

608
00:38:13,300 –> 00:38:14,050
Well,

609
00:38:17,060 –> 00:38:20,608
this is the kinds of conversations you actually wind up having to have

610
00:38:20,774 –> 00:38:24,016
when political topics are discussed in a

611
00:38:24,038 –> 00:38:27,792
leadership context in the workplace. Yeah. And listen,

612
00:38:27,926 –> 00:38:31,476
sometimes it’s not even what you say. It’s the manner in which you say

613
00:38:31,498 –> 00:38:34,676
it. Right. I can look at you and I think I might have mentioned that

614
00:38:34,698 –> 00:38:37,796
you and I might have had a discussion like this at some point in

615
00:38:37,818 –> 00:38:41,236
the near past, but sometimes it has nothing to

616
00:38:41,258 –> 00:38:43,896
do with the words that are coming out of your mouth. It has more to

617
00:38:43,918 –> 00:38:46,936
do in the way and the manner in which you hold yourself when you say

618
00:38:46,958 –> 00:38:50,632
them. For example, I’ll just give the listeners and the viewers a good example.

619
00:38:50,766 –> 00:38:54,440
I can look at you and go, hey, son, you suck.

620
00:38:54,860 –> 00:38:57,676
Right? And then I could look at you a different day, be like, My God.

621
00:38:57,698 –> 00:39:01,484
I’m like, hey, son, you suck, man. It’s the same words.

622
00:39:01,602 –> 00:39:05,024
But I’m guaranteeing you, you react differently to the way that I say

623
00:39:05,062 –> 00:39:06,290
it. Right.

624
00:39:08,500 –> 00:39:12,432
If I tell you that I love you, that’s a totally different

625
00:39:12,486 –> 00:39:15,520
thing than when I tell my wife I love her. Yes,

626
00:39:15,590 –> 00:39:18,708
exactly. And by the way, if I told it to you the way that I

627
00:39:18,714 –> 00:39:21,908
tell it to my wife, that would. Your wife would have a problem with that?

628
00:39:21,994 –> 00:39:23,190
Yes, that’s correct.

629
00:39:25,640 –> 00:39:29,252
My wife would have an issue. Right. But again, in fairness,

630
00:39:29,316 –> 00:39:32,724
I think this question is not so much about reclaiming.

631
00:39:32,772 –> 00:39:36,644
It’s more so much about mindfulness and understanding

632
00:39:36,692 –> 00:39:39,050
who you’re talking to and how you’re talking to people.

633
00:39:40,380 –> 00:39:45,004
I don’t think I’ve ever been considered let

634
00:39:45,042 –> 00:39:47,596
me rephrase this. I’m sure I have. I was going to say,

635
00:39:47,618 –> 00:39:52,140
like, in certain environments, being impolite or having no decorum,

636
00:39:53,280 –> 00:39:57,240
I’ve never been accused of that in the professional

637
00:39:57,320 –> 00:40:00,992
environments. I have definitely been accused of that in my personal

638
00:40:01,046 –> 00:40:04,448
life. Sometimes I just don’t care what my family thinks. I’ll just say whatever I

639
00:40:04,454 –> 00:40:07,744
want to say. Okay, well, that’s the thing that just don’t care thing.

640
00:40:07,782 –> 00:40:11,636
Okay. We are now in a leadership environment, and we have

641
00:40:11,658 –> 00:40:14,884
been for a while now, I would say probably at the last ten years.

642
00:40:15,002 –> 00:40:18,644
And the leadership environment of the last ten years is an environment where,

643
00:40:18,842 –> 00:40:22,200
again, I need to make a space for everyone.

644
00:40:22,270 –> 00:40:25,336
As a leader, I am required to make a space for everyone to show up

645
00:40:25,358 –> 00:40:26,840
with their true selves.

646
00:40:28,940 –> 00:40:32,456
Okay? But here’s the pushback on this, and I’ve

647
00:40:32,488 –> 00:40:36,172
always pushed back on this. Number one, work level

648
00:40:36,226 –> 00:40:39,660
relationships are always what’s what we call an anthropology. Second level

649
00:40:39,730 –> 00:40:43,276
relationships. They’re not first level relationships. And it

650
00:40:43,298 –> 00:40:47,500
doesn’t matter how much of your work is your identity. There is still that separation.

651
00:40:47,580 –> 00:40:50,736
And I don’t care if you’re working remotely, working from home,

652
00:40:50,838 –> 00:40:54,816
working in a hybrid situation, or working on site. I don’t care where

653
00:40:54,838 –> 00:40:58,164
your team is, right? There’s a separation that

654
00:40:58,282 –> 00:41:01,668
we create psychologically. And by the way,

655
00:41:01,754 –> 00:41:05,684
we’ve been doing this ever since we were pushing ever since

656
00:41:05,722 –> 00:41:09,284
people were pushing donkeys behind or

657
00:41:09,402 –> 00:41:12,296
cracking on a donkey to get it to pull a plow, right?

658
00:41:12,398 –> 00:41:15,064
Like, you go out in the field,

659
00:41:15,182 –> 00:41:18,676
right? Or you leave the home to go foraging

660
00:41:18,708 –> 00:41:22,250
or to go hunt, right? Or you go to another

661
00:41:22,700 –> 00:41:26,444
center place in the village to weave the

662
00:41:26,482 –> 00:41:30,268
cotton, right? You talked about being a Native American in Native American

663
00:41:30,354 –> 00:41:34,076
tribal environments, people left the teepee to go do stuff and

664
00:41:34,098 –> 00:41:37,472
then came back. Is that correct? Or left whatever the housing situation was,

665
00:41:37,526 –> 00:41:40,944
right? Am I correct in this? Yeah. Okay. Now,

666
00:41:40,982 –> 00:41:43,488
sometimes they did some stuff, don’t get me wrong. They did some stuff in the

667
00:41:43,494 –> 00:41:47,510
home. Everybody did. But for the most part, you left and then come back.

668
00:41:47,880 –> 00:41:51,776
There’s something that’s important about human beings

669
00:41:51,968 –> 00:41:55,456
physically leaving a space and going into another space. That creates

670
00:41:55,488 –> 00:41:59,024
a barrier. It creates a barrier

671
00:41:59,072 –> 00:42:03,048
separation of place. But now it’s a mental mindframe. You change,

672
00:42:03,214 –> 00:42:06,836
right? But now we have all this collapsing of categories that’s

673
00:42:06,868 –> 00:42:10,120
happened, happening for the last ten years. And inside

674
00:42:10,190 –> 00:42:12,120
of that collapsing of categories,

675
00:42:14,220 –> 00:42:17,752
some people not everybody, some people are demanding of leaders.

676
00:42:17,816 –> 00:42:20,396
You have to make a space for me to bring my true self, because all

677
00:42:20,418 –> 00:42:23,070
my categories have to collapse here in this space.

678
00:42:24,400 –> 00:42:27,688
And I don’t know how you maintain that. I’ll be honest. I don’t

679
00:42:27,704 –> 00:42:30,812
know how you maintain that. I don’t think you can. I had a conversation

680
00:42:30,876 –> 00:42:34,476
again, most all of my kids are adults at this point. I had a conversation

681
00:42:34,508 –> 00:42:37,888
with one of my kids about their job in the past, and they were like,

682
00:42:37,894 –> 00:42:40,948
well, they were complaining about this or that, and I go, well, then get a

683
00:42:40,954 –> 00:42:44,308
new job. Well, I shouldn’t have to. They should just no, if you

684
00:42:44,314 –> 00:42:48,308
don’t like it, go get a new job. They shouldn’t have to fit you

685
00:42:48,394 –> 00:42:52,116
into their it should be a puzzle

686
00:42:52,148 –> 00:42:55,610
piece that fits with everybody. Not everyone’s going to fit with everybody,

687
00:42:56,140 –> 00:43:00,480
and you need to make sure that the cogs in the wheel all mesh,

688
00:43:00,580 –> 00:43:01,230
right?

689
00:43:03,360 –> 00:43:06,524
If your current job is not making, as you

690
00:43:06,562 –> 00:43:09,836
put it, making your space for you, then go find one that

691
00:43:09,858 –> 00:43:13,932
will. You should go work where you’re wanted and honored

692
00:43:13,996 –> 00:43:17,376
and respected and whatever, and if you are trying to make

693
00:43:17,478 –> 00:43:20,912
an employer forcibly mold into

694
00:43:20,966 –> 00:43:24,576
that, it’s not going to happen. At least not

695
00:43:24,678 –> 00:43:28,096
well. But there’s a long history but

696
00:43:28,118 –> 00:43:30,244
there was a wait a minute, wait a minute. On the opposite side of that.

697
00:43:30,282 –> 00:43:33,844
There’s a long history in the United States of

698
00:43:34,042 –> 00:43:38,044
not even cultural, political institutions having pressure

699
00:43:38,112 –> 00:43:41,016
put on them and changing now,

700
00:43:41,038 –> 00:43:44,200
they’re not changing hearts. Let’s be real. Okay.

701
00:43:44,350 –> 00:43:47,944
They’re just changing the systemic use

702
00:43:47,982 –> 00:43:52,312
a social justice term, the systemic structures of how the system operates.

703
00:43:52,376 –> 00:43:55,868
Right. So the 1964

704
00:43:55,954 –> 00:43:59,016
Civil Rights Act, right, that was evidence

705
00:43:59,048 –> 00:44:03,020
of people putting some external pressure

706
00:44:03,700 –> 00:44:07,664
on not

707
00:44:07,702 –> 00:44:11,568
really systematized racism, but okay, we’ll just use that framing for the moment,

708
00:44:11,654 –> 00:44:15,196
systematized racism and creating new laws

709
00:44:15,308 –> 00:44:18,796
that allowed access for African Americans

710
00:44:18,828 –> 00:44:22,244
to places where they had not had access before. Okay, so there’s some

711
00:44:22,282 –> 00:44:25,632
evidence, and you can’t take this away from this idea from folks,

712
00:44:25,776 –> 00:44:29,048
that if you just put pressure on the structure and don’t leave,

713
00:44:29,214 –> 00:44:32,890
the structure will change. There’s precedent for that. Sure, yeah.

714
00:44:36,860 –> 00:44:40,616
In the people’s minds. They don’t separate the government from work.

715
00:44:40,798 –> 00:44:44,172
It’s all these larger structures that are outside of themselves that they have no control

716
00:44:44,226 –> 00:44:47,644
over. So why

717
00:44:47,682 –> 00:44:51,836
wouldn’t they just hang around with the employer in protest? Why not hold

718
00:44:51,858 –> 00:44:55,056
on now, though. Because here’s the difference, the major difference here,

719
00:44:55,238 –> 00:44:58,576
when you’re talking about the system, governmental systems and

720
00:44:58,598 –> 00:45:01,996
things like that, then I’d say Rage Against the Machine

721
00:45:02,028 –> 00:45:05,648
because you can make changes. A company is a

722
00:45:05,654 –> 00:45:09,284
little different. If they see that one person, if you are standing alone and

723
00:45:09,322 –> 00:45:13,140
they fire you, you’re done. Right? It’s completely different.

724
00:45:13,210 –> 00:45:16,256
Where so don’t rage against the corporate machine

725
00:45:16,288 –> 00:45:19,156
I don’t think that really works with Rage. I don’t think Rage really put that

726
00:45:19,178 –> 00:45:22,216
on their last album. I think that one kind of wound up there. I don’t

727
00:45:22,238 –> 00:45:25,352
think one made it down the mountain. No, but you know what I’m saying,

728
00:45:25,406 –> 00:45:28,964
right. Unless you are organizing and structured,

729
00:45:29,092 –> 00:45:32,936
you need to have some real support

730
00:45:33,038 –> 00:45:36,924
behind you in the corporate environment. You need to have a certain percentage of the

731
00:45:36,962 –> 00:45:40,828
company that is behind you or it doesn’t change. I don’t

732
00:45:40,834 –> 00:45:43,516
know whether it’s 5%, 10%, 50%.

733
00:45:43,618 –> 00:45:46,876
I’m assuming the company is going to be different. Like that number is

734
00:45:46,898 –> 00:45:49,872
going to change with the company. The size, the structure of the company,

735
00:45:49,926 –> 00:45:53,328
whatever. Government’s different with one voice. You can make a

736
00:45:53,334 –> 00:45:57,456
difference if you are stern enough, strong enough, and want to stand firm enough with

737
00:45:57,478 –> 00:46:01,060
one voice because people will eventually start following you.

738
00:46:01,130 –> 00:46:04,724
And you can build it in a corporate environment. You can’t build it. You make

739
00:46:04,762 –> 00:46:08,070
that Lear too early, they just fire you.

740
00:46:08,620 –> 00:46:12,196
Okay, is that because and there’s been also a lot of lamenting

741
00:46:12,228 –> 00:46:15,544
over the last, I would say 35 years of the

742
00:46:15,582 –> 00:46:19,560
decline of private sector unions.

743
00:46:20,220 –> 00:46:21,950
Oh, definitely, yes.

744
00:46:24,560 –> 00:46:28,616
Because white unions did for the majority well, not even the majority

745
00:46:28,728 –> 00:46:32,184
for at least 30 years of the back half of the 20th

746
00:46:32,232 –> 00:46:35,856
century. What they did was they set up a

747
00:46:35,878 –> 00:46:40,028
system, the unions basically acted

748
00:46:40,124 –> 00:46:44,160
as that structure of negotiated

749
00:46:44,740 –> 00:46:48,060
power against the corporate structure,

750
00:46:48,140 –> 00:46:51,812
right, with government kind of just hanging out over there and

751
00:46:51,866 –> 00:46:55,300
maybe jumping in if they needed to. So you had four major structures, right?

752
00:46:55,370 –> 00:46:58,230
You had family and community, you had government,

753
00:46:58,780 –> 00:47:02,392
you had unions and you had the corporations. Big, small, little,

754
00:47:02,446 –> 00:47:06,404
didn’t matter. Now, all of those organizations,

755
00:47:06,452 –> 00:47:08,760
all four of those systems,

756
00:47:10,300 –> 00:47:14,328
if I were more of a social justice warrior, I would say conspired or colluded.

757
00:47:14,424 –> 00:47:17,932
I’m more of a realist. So I’m just going to say made

758
00:47:17,986 –> 00:47:21,100
decisions and then all the other systems made other decisions.

759
00:47:21,680 –> 00:47:24,716
When you have four masses, they’re just going to play off of each other.

760
00:47:24,738 –> 00:47:27,984
It’s just kind of the human I don’t see evil behind that,

761
00:47:28,022 –> 00:47:31,810
but okay, there could be. But I’m just saying, sure there could be.

762
00:47:32,500 –> 00:47:35,916
Your mileage may vary on what you see. I believe in my own

763
00:47:35,958 –> 00:47:38,070
conspiracy theories that I make up. Okay,

764
00:47:39,560 –> 00:47:43,252
so you’ve got those four systems, right? And the individual inside

765
00:47:43,306 –> 00:47:46,932
of those four systems at least had, from their

766
00:47:46,986 –> 00:47:50,356
perspective, at least had the unions to

767
00:47:50,378 –> 00:47:54,056
be able to go and counterbalance all of those other structures. Now you get on

768
00:47:54,078 –> 00:47:57,160
the other side of globalization. You get on the other side of the 1970s,

769
00:47:57,230 –> 00:48:01,304
and now we’re into a different dynamic where you’re right, it is

770
00:48:01,422 –> 00:48:05,370
one person alone negotiating with the system.

771
00:48:05,820 –> 00:48:09,676
But to your point, you are right with the unions that one person had a

772
00:48:09,698 –> 00:48:14,396
voice and they weren’t fearful of being fired because of their opinion with

773
00:48:14,418 –> 00:48:17,612
that union structure. So now this follows through to the next question,

774
00:48:17,666 –> 00:48:20,844
which is, were things more polite when it was only those

775
00:48:20,882 –> 00:48:24,268
four mass structures, family, community, government,

776
00:48:24,434 –> 00:48:28,500
unions, and and the corporate structure?

777
00:48:32,410 –> 00:48:35,846
I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve never belonged to a unions, so I

778
00:48:35,868 –> 00:48:39,126
couldn’t speak to that if there was some advantage to that.

779
00:48:39,148 –> 00:48:42,060
But I’ve spent a lot of time in the corporate world.

780
00:48:43,630 –> 00:48:47,082
Well, I will say that unions did a really awesome job of

781
00:48:47,136 –> 00:48:50,714
people talk a lot about the top 1% and sort of how

782
00:48:50,752 –> 00:48:53,766
corporate CEOs make too much money and DA DA DA.

783
00:48:53,878 –> 00:48:57,502
What the unions did was they flattened all of that.

784
00:48:57,636 –> 00:49:01,006
So it wasn’t that a CEO in the 1950s and

785
00:49:01,028 –> 00:49:05,154
1960s, it wasn’t that they were making less

786
00:49:05,272 –> 00:49:09,790
per capita than their comparable

787
00:49:09,950 –> 00:49:13,474
compatriots. 50 years later or 60 years later or 70

788
00:49:13,512 –> 00:49:17,498
years later, they actually were making pretty much the same. Like corporate CEO

789
00:49:17,694 –> 00:49:21,270
salaries are pretty much the same.

790
00:49:21,420 –> 00:49:24,998
But what happened was the compensation structures outside

791
00:49:25,084 –> 00:49:29,126
of salaries became more robust because what the

792
00:49:29,148 –> 00:49:33,494
unions did was they basically forced wage

793
00:49:33,622 –> 00:49:37,210
inflation at the CEO level downward.

794
00:49:37,790 –> 00:49:41,366
And so the compensation then had to shift

795
00:49:41,398 –> 00:49:44,954
into other areas. So for instance, the CEO

796
00:49:45,002 –> 00:49:48,010
of Ford got paid per capita,

797
00:49:48,090 –> 00:49:50,960
pretty much what the CEO of Ford gets paid now.

798
00:49:51,330 –> 00:49:54,474
But their compensation package of stock options,

799
00:49:54,612 –> 00:49:57,090
a private car, a mistress,

800
00:49:58,310 –> 00:50:01,938
whiskey and bourbon in the bottle. Oh, yeah, I said it.

801
00:50:02,024 –> 00:50:06,318
All of that. For those of you who are listening

802
00:50:06,334 –> 00:50:10,118
on the audio, tom is now turning red, laughing when I said mistress as part

803
00:50:10,124 –> 00:50:14,306
of the compensation package. That whole compensation package

804
00:50:14,498 –> 00:50:17,558
is now underwritten in a

805
00:50:17,564 –> 00:50:20,998
different kind of way and has become more robust, particularly because of stock options.

806
00:50:21,084 –> 00:50:24,746
Has become more robust. Whereas back in the day, the unions compressed all of

807
00:50:24,768 –> 00:50:28,378
that. Yeah, I think if I were

808
00:50:28,384 –> 00:50:31,466
to have to answer it just with one word, like yes or no, I would

809
00:50:31,488 –> 00:50:35,022
have to say yes. Right. I think part of

810
00:50:35,076 –> 00:50:38,190
what you’re talking about too, is the family

811
00:50:38,260 –> 00:50:42,190
and the union units were almost like on your side

812
00:50:42,260 –> 00:50:46,080
and the corporate and the government was on the other side. And it was even

813
00:50:46,450 –> 00:50:49,474
they had to be polite when the power is even,

814
00:50:49,672 –> 00:50:53,038
right. They had no choice because you couldn’t be doing what you’re

815
00:50:53,054 –> 00:50:56,562
doing today. Meaning, oh, that guy’s a squeaky wheel in the cog, let’s fire

816
00:50:56,616 –> 00:51:00,646
him. Right. That didn’t happen like that back then. So if

817
00:51:00,668 –> 00:51:03,320
I had to answer a simple answer, I would say then yes.

818
00:51:04,250 –> 00:51:05,400
But again,

819
00:51:07,290 –> 00:51:10,506
we talked a lot about some

820
00:51:10,528 –> 00:51:14,522
of the things that we were hoping took

821
00:51:14,576 –> 00:51:18,090
over for those unions as they dissipated were things like

822
00:51:18,160 –> 00:51:21,594
minimum wage going up at a reasonable rate, the government

823
00:51:21,712 –> 00:51:25,274
getting rid of the time

824
00:51:25,312 –> 00:51:28,638
and a half was now instituted by the government, things like

825
00:51:28,644 –> 00:51:31,998
that. We’re all starting to be governed now. So the unions started to kind of

826
00:51:32,004 –> 00:51:35,774
go away. But to your point, I think that

827
00:51:35,812 –> 00:51:39,050
power started to kind of lopside back the other way.

828
00:51:39,140 –> 00:51:42,754
Well, the other dynamic that almost no one ever considers and

829
00:51:42,792 –> 00:51:45,858
this is a business podcast, as well as being a literature podcast, we do have

830
00:51:45,864 –> 00:51:49,666
to mention this dynamic. They kind of tap danced around it. But the other thing

831
00:51:49,688 –> 00:51:52,246
the union does, and no one ever talks about this, but the other thing the

832
00:51:52,268 –> 00:51:55,666
union did was it kept out women and minorities.

833
00:51:55,858 –> 00:51:59,320
Yeah, it did a really awesome job of doing that.

834
00:52:00,570 –> 00:52:03,800
And so if you are a minority male in this country,

835
00:52:04,590 –> 00:52:08,346
I would say you couldn’t it was really hard to get

836
00:52:08,368 –> 00:52:11,674
a union job. Yeah, for sure. Like really hard.

837
00:52:11,712 –> 00:52:14,634
Like stupidly hard. And if you were a woman, oh, forget it,

838
00:52:14,752 –> 00:52:18,158
get out of town. You’re not going to get a union job. You’re going

839
00:52:18,164 –> 00:52:21,342
to be the wife of a person who has a union job. And that’s about

840
00:52:21,396 –> 00:52:25,226
where it stops. Now, as unions decline, the franchise, as my lawyer

841
00:52:25,258 –> 00:52:28,578
buddy would say, the franchise expands. Right. So you

842
00:52:28,584 –> 00:52:32,466
have more people in the pool, which from

843
00:52:32,488 –> 00:52:36,066
a corporation’s perspective, that’s good because now what you

844
00:52:36,088 –> 00:52:39,606
can do is you can spread out the cost of labor across

845
00:52:39,708 –> 00:52:43,970
all of these other demographic areas.

846
00:52:44,050 –> 00:52:48,066
And you can also, because you’re the only power in town now, only governments

847
00:52:48,098 –> 00:52:51,370
counterbalancing you. So now you can depress wages.

848
00:52:51,950 –> 00:52:55,594
White also expanding the franchise, which is why every single

849
00:52:55,632 –> 00:52:58,650
time Amazon workers vote for a union,

850
00:52:59,070 –> 00:53:02,246
it fails every single time. I don’t know what’s happening

851
00:53:02,288 –> 00:53:06,046
with Starbucks, but I do definitely see

852
00:53:06,228 –> 00:53:09,790
a shift happening. But it’s going to happen not because

853
00:53:09,860 –> 00:53:13,722
of cultural means of politeness. It’s going to happen because of political

854
00:53:13,786 –> 00:53:17,730
issues that are translated into cultural mores.

855
00:53:20,950 –> 00:53:24,194
I can see people unionizing because they

856
00:53:24,232 –> 00:53:26,858
want to use a particular bathroom.

857
00:53:27,054 –> 00:53:31,270
Yeah, but to get back to your original

858
00:53:32,490 –> 00:53:35,926
reclaim politeness in the core, what started this

859
00:53:35,948 –> 00:53:39,782
whole debacle of conversation was,

860
00:53:39,916 –> 00:53:43,606
can leaders reclaim politeness in decorum? I still

861
00:53:43,628 –> 00:53:47,046
stand to my guns here. I think the fact of the matter is we shouldn’t

862
00:53:47,078 –> 00:53:49,978
be reclaiming anything. It should have never left in the first place.

863
00:53:50,064 –> 00:53:54,654
You do not need to be told to

864
00:53:54,692 –> 00:53:57,310
treat people with a little bit of dignity and respect.

865
00:53:58,530 –> 00:54:00,000
You shouldn’t be told.

866
00:54:02,450 –> 00:54:05,658
I think the other thing in the decorum thing, I think this

867
00:54:05,684 –> 00:54:09,806
could be a podcast all by itself, because I think we are losing grip

868
00:54:09,918 –> 00:54:13,086
on how we present ourselves in certain environments.

869
00:54:13,278 –> 00:54:17,506
I just think it brings me back to the

870
00:54:17,528 –> 00:54:20,846
old Brady Bunch. Put on your Sunday best, kids. We’re going to see hers.

871
00:54:20,878 –> 00:54:24,294
Right. People dressed a certain way to go to certain

872
00:54:24,332 –> 00:54:27,606
functions. People dressed a certain way. They held themselves in a

873
00:54:27,628 –> 00:54:31,218
certain way when they’re in certain environments, whether it

874
00:54:31,244 –> 00:54:34,570
be weddings or funerals or bridal showers,

875
00:54:35,070 –> 00:54:38,586
corporate parties, corporate functions, things like and

876
00:54:38,608 –> 00:54:41,946
now all of a sudden, it just seems like I can dress in a T

877
00:54:41,968 –> 00:54:45,466
shirt, in shorts. I don’t care that I’m going to a wedding.

878
00:54:45,658 –> 00:54:49,134
It just blows my mind how we have deteriorated, how we

879
00:54:49,172 –> 00:54:52,734
present ourselves in a manner like this and back then,

880
00:54:52,772 –> 00:54:57,006
in Jane Austin’s time, would have never happened.

881
00:54:57,188 –> 00:55:01,038
Well, this is where we look at the thing that happened in Jane Austin’s

882
00:55:01,054 –> 00:55:04,674
time. We look at it through this postmodern lens and we go,

883
00:55:04,872 –> 00:55:08,280
they were repressed. We’re just so much freer because we know more.

884
00:55:11,370 –> 00:55:13,000
No, not really.

885
00:55:17,370 –> 00:55:20,710
We talked about this a little bit off the air before we started recording,

886
00:55:21,070 –> 00:55:24,618
but I think it’s worthwhile to say here, when the little things go,

887
00:55:24,704 –> 00:55:28,282
the big things aren’t far behind. Right? And so people

888
00:55:28,336 –> 00:55:32,558
have been complaining leaders have been complaining about

889
00:55:32,644 –> 00:55:36,398
the casual nature of dress, particularly in

890
00:55:36,404 –> 00:55:39,646
the workplace, for, at minimum, since,

891
00:55:39,748 –> 00:55:43,706
gosh, the early 90s, when I can remember first hearing

892
00:55:43,738 –> 00:55:47,330
that lament. I think

893
00:55:47,400 –> 00:55:50,606
that if leaders

894
00:55:50,638 –> 00:55:54,338
want a tactical thing to take out of this, all this entire conversation in

895
00:55:54,344 –> 00:55:57,554
mishmash around Jane Austin, the tactical thing to take out of this

896
00:55:57,592 –> 00:56:01,334
is you can set the clothing standard.

897
00:56:01,532 –> 00:56:04,774
Yes. Now, you may not have people who want to work with

898
00:56:04,812 –> 00:56:07,640
you, but to Tom’s point,

899
00:56:08,170 –> 00:56:11,462
if we really are in a free market of labor

900
00:56:11,526 –> 00:56:15,114
and capital and labor can go wherever the heck it

901
00:56:15,152 –> 00:56:18,586
wants, you set the standard as

902
00:56:18,608 –> 00:56:22,534
the leader. And if labor doesn’t agree with it, labor can go pound

903
00:56:22,582 –> 00:56:25,530
sand. There’s another job across the street,

904
00:56:26,510 –> 00:56:29,386
right? We dress in top hat and tails here. Well, I don’t want to dress

905
00:56:29,418 –> 00:56:32,538
in top hat and tails. There’s another job right across the street.

906
00:56:32,634 –> 00:56:36,990
As Alec Baldwin said, infamously in The Departed, the world always these were bartenders

907
00:56:37,890 –> 00:56:41,634
when you go be one over there. And this all stems from

908
00:56:41,752 –> 00:56:45,166
the Steve Jobs era, right? When he came out on that stage as the CEO

909
00:56:45,198 –> 00:56:48,274
of Apple in a turtleneck. Turtleneck, yeah,

910
00:56:48,392 –> 00:56:51,838
right? No shirt and tie, no suit coat. And all

911
00:56:51,864 –> 00:56:54,838
of a sudden, everybody went, well, if he can do it and he’s the top

912
00:56:54,924 –> 00:56:58,598
producing, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, then everybody should be able to

913
00:56:58,604 –> 00:57:01,734
do it because we learn from the top down, right?

914
00:57:01,772 –> 00:57:05,338
Like, we model from the top down. And I was told as a

915
00:57:05,344 –> 00:57:08,938
kid, don’t dress for the job you want. Dress for the job you have.

916
00:57:09,024 –> 00:57:12,874
So now I’m a sales guy back then wearing a suit every day.

917
00:57:12,912 –> 00:57:15,226
And I’m like, well, if I want his job, I have to wear a turtleneck

918
00:57:15,258 –> 00:57:18,400
to work tomorrow. My boss was like, no,

919
00:57:19,730 –> 00:57:22,430
if you want this job, you’re wearing a suit tomorrow.

920
00:57:22,850 –> 00:57:25,680
I see these turtlenecks walk through this door, we’re going to have a problem.

921
00:57:26,310 –> 00:57:29,694
All right, I guess I’m wearing a suit tomorrow. I don’t really want Steve Jobs

922
00:57:29,742 –> 00:57:30,340
job.

923
00:57:34,630 –> 00:57:37,586
Maybe I’m ringing the bell on something that doesn’t need to be rung. I do

924
00:57:37,608 –> 00:57:40,758
think that in this is the last thing I’ll say about polite is it a

925
00:57:40,764 –> 00:57:43,990
core, but we’re going to turn the corner a little bit here. Moving on.

926
00:57:44,060 –> 00:57:47,462
We’ll move on. But one last thing that

927
00:57:47,516 –> 00:57:49,750
I think bears stating.

928
00:57:51,630 –> 00:57:54,922
I think in family, in small

929
00:57:54,976 –> 00:57:57,818
businesses, we do have a lot of folks who run small businesses who listen to

930
00:57:57,824 –> 00:57:58,730
our podcast.

931
00:58:01,310 –> 00:58:05,054
Civic government, particularly at the state

932
00:58:05,092 –> 00:58:08,574
level, going all the way down there is still an

933
00:58:08,612 –> 00:58:10,682
understanding that decorum,

934
00:58:10,826 –> 00:58:13,070
politeness, dress,

935
00:58:13,730 –> 00:58:17,394
posture, speech, these are

936
00:58:17,432 –> 00:58:21,330
more than just performative check marks.

937
00:58:21,750 –> 00:58:25,890
These are standards of maintaining

938
00:58:27,690 –> 00:58:31,240
well, no, I’ll frame it even more, even more bluntly than this.

939
00:58:31,610 –> 00:58:35,286
They are a thumb in the dam or in

940
00:58:35,308 –> 00:58:39,074
the dike against the crashing

941
00:58:39,122 –> 00:58:43,098
water of chaos that is behind that. And that’s all

942
00:58:43,104 –> 00:58:44,540
the civilization is.

943
00:58:45,550 –> 00:58:50,266
Civilization is

944
00:58:50,288 –> 00:58:53,594
the battle to create boundaries around chaos, right?

945
00:58:53,632 –> 00:58:56,160
And to contain it and to hold it down, right?

946
00:58:57,330 –> 00:59:00,590
My youngest son likes to listen to,

947
00:59:00,660 –> 00:59:02,846
and I’m going to give a shout out to this author, john R. R.

948
00:59:02,868 –> 00:59:06,218
Erickson and Hank the Cow Dog. And it’s

949
00:59:06,234 –> 00:59:09,506
a whole series of these Western themed books that are about

950
00:59:09,528 –> 00:59:12,898
a cow dog, and it’s written from the perspective of the dog, right, and the

951
00:59:12,904 –> 00:59:16,050
dog’s adventures and all that. And one episode,

952
00:59:16,870 –> 00:59:20,018
he’s basically yelling at another dog for eating too loudly out of a

953
00:59:20,024 –> 00:59:23,086
hubcap. Oh, it’s hilarious.

954
00:59:23,118 –> 00:59:26,326
I laugh every time I hear it on the audio recording that my kid has.

955
00:59:26,348 –> 00:59:29,126
And he sort of sort of memorized this. But one of the things that the

956
00:59:29,148 –> 00:59:32,074
dog says, that Hank the dog says to the other dog,

957
00:59:32,112 –> 00:59:35,942
drover is eating

958
00:59:36,006 –> 00:59:39,466
loudly is basically a lack of decorum, is what he’s saying.

959
00:59:39,568 –> 00:59:42,826
Eating loudly, having bad manners means that you’re behaving like

960
00:59:42,848 –> 00:59:46,266
a hog. But no one expects hogs to have civilization. But we’re

961
00:59:46,298 –> 00:59:50,174
dogs. We’re supposed to hold back the chaos and

962
00:59:50,212 –> 00:59:54,400
be the representatives of civilization. And the other dog, of course,

963
00:59:54,850 –> 00:59:58,222
is the comedic straight man and kind of goes, what? I didn’t hear that

964
00:59:58,356 –> 01:00:01,726
the colonels were hard. Like not holding

965
01:00:01,758 –> 01:00:05,186
back chaos is hard. The colonels were hard. And I crack up every time I

966
01:00:05,208 –> 01:00:08,020
hear it. But it’s going down to the five year old set, right?

967
01:00:09,430 –> 01:00:13,062
Still the same, though. We’re still doing this. This is what I’m saying.

968
01:00:13,196 –> 01:00:16,962
I think we are still holding on. I just think it’s our cultural

969
01:00:17,026 –> 01:00:20,454
elite, maybe our political elite, maybe our

970
01:00:20,492 –> 01:00:23,930
thought elites. This is why I’ve never styled myself as a thought leader.

971
01:00:24,830 –> 01:00:29,286
I think those folks are operating in a different kind of atmosphere.

972
01:00:29,478 –> 01:00:32,986
But even there, I will bet you if

973
01:00:33,008 –> 01:00:37,034
I leapfrogged into that space, I’m not coming in there with a turtleneck

974
01:00:37,162 –> 01:00:39,774
and saying, as my grandmother would have said back in the day this year,

975
01:00:39,812 –> 01:00:42,560
and that there. It’s not happening.

976
01:00:43,250 –> 01:00:46,622
I’m with you. All right, back to the book,

977
01:00:46,676 –> 01:00:50,494
back to Sense and Sensibility. We almost did have a whole entire podcast

978
01:00:50,542 –> 01:00:53,380
on that one thing just by itself.

979
01:00:54,470 –> 01:00:57,986
This is a topic that we’re going to revisit because I do believe Austin has

980
01:00:58,008 –> 01:01:02,210
a lot. This is where Austin and Bronte we’re

981
01:01:02,710 –> 01:01:05,766
going to cover some of the works of Charlotte Bronte. I think we’re going to

982
01:01:05,788 –> 01:01:09,110
be talking about Jane Eyre coming up here fairly soon on the podcast.

983
01:01:10,010 –> 01:01:13,526
When women writers write, particularly women writers

984
01:01:13,558 –> 01:01:17,386
of the 17th and 18th and 19th century, when they white, they are

985
01:01:17,408 –> 01:01:20,794
writing about the things they are observing in the

986
01:01:20,832 –> 01:01:23,274
intimate areas of family,

987
01:01:23,472 –> 01:01:27,038
of community. They’re not writing about the large,

988
01:01:27,124 –> 01:01:30,826
sweeping trajectory areas like men tend to write about. They’re writing

989
01:01:30,858 –> 01:01:34,782
about the small things. We need both of those. We need the big thing.

990
01:01:34,836 –> 01:01:38,306
We need the big vision, we need the great man idea, but we also need

991
01:01:38,328 –> 01:01:41,698
the great woman idea or the great person idea. If we don’t want

992
01:01:41,704 –> 01:01:44,610
to be gendered of people,

993
01:01:44,680 –> 01:01:48,622
behaving in small spheres in ways that invents

994
01:01:48,686 –> 01:01:51,730
leadership, because that is where leadership really begins,

995
01:01:51,890 –> 01:01:55,174
is in those small spheres. Back to the book,

996
01:01:55,212 –> 01:01:58,486
back to Sense and Sensibility. We’re going to go move ahead here to

997
01:01:58,508 –> 01:02:02,554
chapter ten, and this

998
01:02:02,592 –> 01:02:05,866
gentleman named Willoughby, who’s now going to start showing up.

999
01:02:05,888 –> 01:02:09,370
Willoughby is the gentleman caller, along with Edward,

1000
01:02:09,950 –> 01:02:13,498
who is romancing one of

1001
01:02:13,504 –> 01:02:15,020
the characters in here,

1002
01:02:17,630 –> 01:02:19,520
Mary Ann. And so,

1003
01:02:21,890 –> 01:02:25,618
chapter ten, we talk about Willoughby and sort of

1004
01:02:25,704 –> 01:02:30,110
his nature of being attracted to Marianne.

1005
01:02:30,190 –> 01:02:34,450
And keep in mind, Marianne in this book is

1006
01:02:34,520 –> 01:02:38,054
16 and a half, right? And so we’re going. To talk a little bit about.

1007
01:02:38,252 –> 01:02:41,766
What does it mean? What does it mean to be

1008
01:02:41,788 –> 01:02:45,554
past your prime? They speedily

1009
01:02:45,602 –> 01:02:48,978
discovered that their enjoyment of dancing and music this is Willoughby and Mary

1010
01:02:48,994 –> 01:02:52,694
Ann was mutual, and that it arose from a general conformity

1011
01:02:52,742 –> 01:02:55,900
of judgment in all that related to either.

1012
01:02:56,270 –> 01:02:59,446
Encouraged by this to a further examination of his opinion, she proceeded

1013
01:02:59,478 –> 01:03:02,826
to question him on the subject of books. Her favorite authors were

1014
01:03:02,848 –> 01:03:06,174
brought forward and dwelt upon white so rapturous a delight that any young man

1015
01:03:06,212 –> 01:03:09,694
of five and 20 must have been insensible indeed, not to become

1016
01:03:09,732 –> 01:03:14,090
an immediate convert to the excellence of such works. However disregarded

1017
01:03:14,170 –> 01:03:17,306
before, their taste was strikingly

1018
01:03:17,338 –> 01:03:21,106
alike. The same books, the same passages, were idolized by each or if any

1019
01:03:21,128 –> 01:03:24,226
difference appeared, any objection arose. It lasted no longer

1020
01:03:24,328 –> 01:03:27,106
than till the force of her arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be

1021
01:03:27,128 –> 01:03:30,854
displayed. He acquiesced in all her decisions, caught all

1022
01:03:30,892 –> 01:03:34,866
her enthusiasm, and long before his visit concluded, they conversed with the familiarity

1023
01:03:34,898 –> 01:03:38,182
of a long established acquaintance. Well,

1024
01:03:38,236 –> 01:03:41,542
Mary Anne, said Eleanor, as soon as he had left them for

1025
01:03:41,596 –> 01:03:44,938
one morning, I think you have done pretty well. You have already,

1026
01:03:45,024 –> 01:03:48,826
ascertained Mr. Willoughby’s opinion, in almost every matter of importance. You know what

1027
01:03:48,848 –> 01:03:52,186
he thinks of Cowper and Scott. You are certain of his estimating their beauties as

1028
01:03:52,208 –> 01:03:55,806
he ought and you have received every assurance of his admiring pope no more

1029
01:03:55,828 –> 01:03:58,974
than his proper. But how is your acquaintance to be long

1030
01:03:59,012 –> 01:04:02,314
supported under such extraordinary dispatch of every subject

1031
01:04:02,362 –> 01:04:05,706
for discourse? You will soon have exhausted each favorite

1032
01:04:05,738 –> 01:04:09,374
topic. Another meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty

1033
01:04:09,422 –> 01:04:12,820
and second marriages, and then you can have nothing farther to ask.

1034
01:04:13,590 –> 01:04:16,818
Eleanor. Cried Mary Ann. Is this fair? Is this just?

1035
01:04:16,904 –> 01:04:20,130
Are my ideas so scanty? But I see what you mean.

1036
01:04:20,200 –> 01:04:23,346
I have been too much at my ease, too happy, too frank. I have erred

1037
01:04:23,378 –> 01:04:26,082
against every commonplace notion of decorum.

1038
01:04:26,226 –> 01:04:29,926
I have been open, sincere, where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless dull and

1039
01:04:29,948 –> 01:04:33,366
deceitful. Had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and I had

1040
01:04:33,388 –> 01:04:37,450
spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would have been spared.

1041
01:04:37,870 –> 01:04:41,034
My love, said her mother, you must not be offended with Eleanor. She was only

1042
01:04:41,072 –> 01:04:44,538
in jest. I should scold her myself if she were capable of wishing

1043
01:04:44,554 –> 01:04:47,760
to check the delight of your conversation with our new friend.

1044
01:04:48,450 –> 01:04:51,200
Marianne was softened in a moment.

1045
01:04:52,210 –> 01:04:55,434
Willoughby, on his side, gave every proof of his pleasure in their acquaintance,

1046
01:04:55,482 –> 01:04:58,754
which an evident wish of improving it could offer. He came to them

1047
01:04:58,792 –> 01:05:02,286
every day to inquire after. Marianne was at first his excuse,

1048
01:05:02,318 –> 01:05:05,778
but the encouragement of his reception, to which every day gave greater kindness, made such

1049
01:05:05,784 –> 01:05:09,326
an excuse unnecessary. Before it ceased to be possible by Marianne’s

1050
01:05:09,358 –> 01:05:12,934
perfect recovery, she was confined for some days to the house,

1051
01:05:12,972 –> 01:05:16,198
but never had any confinement been less irksome. Willoughby was a

1052
01:05:16,204 –> 01:05:20,182
young man of good abilities, quick imagination, lively spirits and an

1053
01:05:20,236 –> 01:05:23,466
open, affectionate manner. He was exactly formed to

1054
01:05:23,488 –> 01:05:27,462
engage Marianne’s heart. For with all this he joined not only a captivating

1055
01:05:27,526 –> 01:05:30,986
person, but a natural ardor of mind which was

1056
01:05:31,008 –> 01:05:34,254
now roused and increased by the example of her own, and which

1057
01:05:34,292 –> 01:05:38,362
recommended him to her affection beyond everything else. The society

1058
01:05:38,426 –> 01:05:42,174
became gradually her most exquisite enjoyment. They read, they talked,

1059
01:05:42,212 –> 01:05:45,646
they sang together. His musical talents were considerable and he read with

1060
01:05:45,668 –> 01:05:49,300
all the sensibility and spirit which Edward had unfortunately wanted.

1061
01:05:50,390 –> 01:05:53,954
In Mrs. Dashwood’s estimation, he was as faultless as

1062
01:05:53,992 –> 01:05:57,298
in Mary Anne’s and in Eleanor. And Eleanor saw nothing to censor in

1063
01:05:57,304 –> 01:06:00,946
him but a propensity in which he strongly remember and peculiarly delighted

1064
01:06:00,978 –> 01:06:05,266
her sister of saying too much what he thought on every occasion,

1065
01:06:05,378 –> 01:06:08,790
without attention to persons or circumstances

1066
01:06:09,930 –> 01:06:13,962
in hastily forming. And giving his opinions of other people in sacrificing general

1067
01:06:14,016 –> 01:06:17,654
politeness to the enjoyment of the undivided attention where his heart was engaged

1068
01:06:17,702 –> 01:06:22,038
and in slighting too easily the forms of worldly propriety he displayed

1069
01:06:22,054 –> 01:06:26,118
a want of caution which Eleanor could not approve

1070
01:06:26,214 –> 01:06:30,000
in spite of all that he and Mary Anne could say in its support.

1071
01:06:30,850 –> 01:06:33,614
I’m going to skip over a few things here, and I’m going to go right

1072
01:06:33,652 –> 01:06:37,774
to one point here. Colonel Brandon’s partiality

1073
01:06:37,822 –> 01:06:41,726
for Marianne, which had so early been discovered by his friends, now first became perceptible

1074
01:06:41,758 –> 01:06:45,620
to Eleanor. Now Colonel Brandon is another gentleman who has come along.

1075
01:06:46,150 –> 01:06:50,318
He was originally at Barton Park and was considered

1076
01:06:50,334 –> 01:06:53,330
to be old by Marianne’s standards.

1077
01:06:54,230 –> 01:06:57,714
Their attention at wit were drawn off to his more fortunate rival,

1078
01:06:57,842 –> 01:07:01,666
that would be Willoughby. And the railery which the other had incurred before any partiality

1079
01:07:01,698 –> 01:07:05,178
arose was removed. When his feelings began really to call for the

1080
01:07:05,184 –> 01:07:07,590
ridicule so justly annexed to Sensibility,

1081
01:07:07,750 –> 01:07:11,146
eleanor was obliged, though unwillingly to believe that the sentiments which

1082
01:07:11,168 –> 01:07:14,554
Mrsings. Had assigned to him for her own satisfaction were now

1083
01:07:14,592 –> 01:07:18,126
actually excited by her sister and that however a general resemblance of

1084
01:07:18,148 –> 01:07:21,914
disposition between the parties might forward the affection of Mr. Willoughby. An equally

1085
01:07:21,962 –> 01:07:26,218
striking opposition of character was no hindrance to the regard of Colonel Brandon.

1086
01:07:26,394 –> 01:07:29,986
She saw it with concern. For what could a silent man of

1087
01:07:30,008 –> 01:07:33,426
five and 30 hope when opposed to a very lively one of

1088
01:07:33,448 –> 01:07:36,686
five n 20 and as she could not even wish

1089
01:07:36,718 –> 01:07:40,194
him successful, she hardly wished him indifferent. She liked him

1090
01:07:40,232 –> 01:07:43,766
in spite of his gravity and reserve. She beheld him an object of interest.

1091
01:07:43,868 –> 01:07:47,206
His manners, though serious, were mild and his reserve appeared rather the

1092
01:07:47,228 –> 01:07:50,826
result of some oppression of spirits than of any natural gloominess of

1093
01:07:50,848 –> 01:07:54,838
temper. Sir John had dropped hints of past injuries and disappointments

1094
01:07:54,934 –> 01:07:58,794
which justified her belief of his being an unfortunate man and she

1095
01:07:58,832 –> 01:08:02,220
regarded him with respect and

1096
01:08:02,690 –> 01:08:03,870
compassion.

1097
01:08:12,050 –> 01:08:15,150
35 and 16 and a half. Oh,

1098
01:08:15,220 –> 01:08:17,520
and 25 and 16 and a half.

1099
01:08:18,690 –> 01:08:21,986
I’m going to let you all white. You’re listening kind of wander through that in

1100
01:08:22,008 –> 01:08:25,934
your head for a minute. But back in the premodern era,

1101
01:08:25,982 –> 01:08:28,130
back in the pre industrial era,

1102
01:08:28,630 –> 01:08:32,070
1615, even 14,

1103
01:08:32,730 –> 01:08:34,950
that was marriageable age for a woman.

1104
01:08:36,330 –> 01:08:39,702
And there were many women who married men

1105
01:08:39,756 –> 01:08:43,266
who were considered to be old in their 30s,

1106
01:08:43,308 –> 01:08:46,746
even up into their forty s and fifty s. And these women were

1107
01:08:46,768 –> 01:08:50,586
barely teenagers, what we would call teenagers these days

1108
01:08:50,688 –> 01:08:54,186
themselves. However, that concept of

1109
01:08:54,208 –> 01:08:57,934
adolescence didn’t exist back in the day. That’s something that has

1110
01:08:57,972 –> 01:09:01,134
really come about. It really began post World

1111
01:09:01,172 –> 01:09:04,698
War I, but really gained speed in America post World War II.

1112
01:09:04,874 –> 01:09:08,494
And the reality is that right along

1113
01:09:08,532 –> 01:09:12,338
with this concept of adolescence, industrialization cultural changes in

1114
01:09:12,344 –> 01:09:15,806
the west and globalization have reduced the number of children that individuals

1115
01:09:15,838 –> 01:09:19,426
have had and thus created a reality where we are

1116
01:09:19,448 –> 01:09:23,154
now through the looking glass. On the other side, where childhood

1117
01:09:23,202 –> 01:09:27,640
and adolescence has been extended out to 25,

1118
01:09:28,170 –> 01:09:32,600
in some cases 30 or 35.

1119
01:09:32,910 –> 01:09:36,634
And those of you who are listening know exactly what I’m talking

1120
01:09:36,672 –> 01:09:39,930
about. You have an adult in your basement.

1121
01:09:41,630 –> 01:09:45,094
But then there’s biology. And biology doesn’t

1122
01:09:45,142 –> 01:09:48,746
care about industrialization, and biology doesn’t care about cultural more rays.

1123
01:09:48,778 –> 01:09:52,094
And biology doesn’t care about what is

1124
01:09:52,132 –> 01:09:55,822
proper or appropriate. Biology merely cares about itself,

1125
01:09:55,956 –> 01:10:00,114
right? And it will not be denied no matter what fancy technology

1126
01:10:00,232 –> 01:10:03,586
humans throw at it. And we’re doing a really awesome job of throwing a lot

1127
01:10:03,608 –> 01:10:07,218
of fancy technology at biology. And it doesn’t matter

1128
01:10:07,304 –> 01:10:08,930
because here’s the reality.

1129
01:10:10,710 –> 01:10:14,126
The human species wants to propagate, and what they’re

1130
01:10:14,158 –> 01:10:18,006
talking about is instant sensibility are the cultural acts what Austin is

1131
01:10:18,028 –> 01:10:21,666
talking about, a sense of sensibility are the cultural acts that exist around the propagation

1132
01:10:21,698 –> 01:10:25,382
of the species. How do people get together? How do they make babies?

1133
01:10:25,446 –> 01:10:29,478
How does the species continue? That’s all biology

1134
01:10:29,574 –> 01:10:32,726
cares about. And what’s interesting in our era

1135
01:10:32,758 –> 01:10:36,286
is we’ve also got 40 under 40 lists and 30 under

1136
01:10:36,308 –> 01:10:40,382
30 lists and increasingly weirdly enough, 50 under 50

1137
01:10:40,436 –> 01:10:43,840
lists. Tom’s looking for an invite to that one,

1138
01:10:44,210 –> 01:10:46,640
as am I, by the way.

1139
01:10:47,410 –> 01:10:48,900
It has to come soon.

1140
01:10:52,550 –> 01:10:53,940
And white quick.

1141
01:10:57,350 –> 01:11:00,786
How can leaders embrace their age, right? And by the

1142
01:11:00,808 –> 01:11:03,862
way, let’s go back to the text a little bit here. What can a man

1143
01:11:03,916 –> 01:11:07,846
of five and 30 say to a man of

1144
01:11:07,868 –> 01:11:10,790
five and 20 that could possibly be competitive?

1145
01:11:11,850 –> 01:11:15,574
Well, it’s funny. It is funny how things

1146
01:11:15,772 –> 01:11:19,494
kind of change like this. It’s so weird,

1147
01:11:19,542 –> 01:11:23,194
right? To think the biology of it all. I think,

1148
01:11:23,312 –> 01:11:27,120
again, if you go back to Jane Austen’s time,

1149
01:11:27,810 –> 01:11:31,934
the average lifespan was a hell of a lot shorter than today.

1150
01:11:32,132 –> 01:11:36,142
You’re talking 50, 55 was a really good

1151
01:11:36,196 –> 01:11:39,374
life. I mean, you probably live into your early sixty s and then you’re done,

1152
01:11:39,412 –> 01:11:43,538
right? If you moved into your early to mid 60s,

1153
01:11:43,704 –> 01:11:47,266
you were like ancient. They were thinking you’re around when Socrates was

1154
01:11:47,288 –> 01:11:50,702
around, you know what I mean? Well, there is interesting image of Socrates.

1155
01:11:50,766 –> 01:11:55,090
There is some evidence that Romans, I’ve been hearing, reading this recently

1156
01:11:55,170 –> 01:11:58,438
based on some new DNA stuff and some ways that they’ve been able to look

1157
01:11:58,444 –> 01:12:02,454
at anthropological samples and kind of date those. There is

1158
01:12:02,492 –> 01:12:05,722
some evidence that Romans, at the very minimum, anyway,

1159
01:12:05,856 –> 01:12:10,298
lived into at least their 70s, sometimes their 80s

1160
01:12:10,384 –> 01:12:14,294
right now in pre industrialized

1161
01:12:14,342 –> 01:12:18,718
England where the diets were a little bit more funky and

1162
01:12:18,804 –> 01:12:21,578
where the genetic,

1163
01:12:21,754 –> 01:12:24,878
how can I put it material was kind

1164
01:12:24,884 –> 01:12:27,840
of in one little bottle for quite some time.

1165
01:12:29,490 –> 01:12:33,598
That probably presented some challenges as well. There’s also something to

1166
01:12:33,604 –> 01:12:37,058
be said too, and you guys can go research this all you want,

1167
01:12:37,144 –> 01:12:41,086
but there is a lot of evidence that shows that the native peoples

1168
01:12:41,118 –> 01:12:44,982
of this continent aren’t my people, would live into their seventy

1169
01:12:45,036 –> 01:12:48,834
s and eighty s on a very regular basis, okay? Our lifestyle

1170
01:12:48,882 –> 01:12:52,886
was different. The way that we viewed personal hygiene was

1171
01:12:52,908 –> 01:12:55,800
different. There was a lot of differences in that. Anyway,

1172
01:12:56,190 –> 01:12:59,818
regardless, my point is it was not uncommon for people to die in

1173
01:12:59,824 –> 01:13:03,354
their late 50s, early 60s back then. Today we’re looking

1174
01:13:03,392 –> 01:13:06,640
at people still working into their seventy s.

1175
01:13:08,770 –> 01:13:12,686
I think just even from that perspective, that changes that

1176
01:13:12,708 –> 01:13:16,414
entire dynamic. Because if your

1177
01:13:16,452 –> 01:13:20,254
life expectancy is that much better, then why

1178
01:13:20,292 –> 01:13:22,946
would you want to marry at that age? Why would you want to marry at

1179
01:13:22,968 –> 01:13:26,558
that young? There’s a lot to be learned about life before you marry if you’re

1180
01:13:26,574 –> 01:13:29,246
thinking about it from that 16 year old’s perspective,

1181
01:13:29,358 –> 01:13:33,286
right? But then again so to your

1182
01:13:33,308 –> 01:13:36,502
question though, how leaders can embrace their age

1183
01:13:36,556 –> 01:13:39,640
when it comes to I think,

1184
01:13:41,770 –> 01:13:45,194
look, I’m never going to be one that people are going to accuse of being

1185
01:13:45,232 –> 01:13:46,220
wise, right?

1186
01:13:48,910 –> 01:13:51,770
I still look to some of my mentors,

1187
01:13:52,590 –> 01:13:56,094
people that I’ve known for years and years that are a significant amount

1188
01:13:56,132 –> 01:13:59,662
of years older than me. I constantly go back to them

1189
01:13:59,716 –> 01:14:03,998
because even at 55,

1190
01:14:04,084 –> 01:14:07,966
65, you are still in a

1191
01:14:07,988 –> 01:14:10,754
position to continue learning as you go.

1192
01:14:10,872 –> 01:14:14,370
There’s so much change that happens that these people are

1193
01:14:14,440 –> 01:14:18,162
still learning. And there’s something to be said about taking that

1194
01:14:18,296 –> 01:14:21,726
new knowledge and battering

1195
01:14:21,758 –> 01:14:24,914
ramming it with the older knowledge. And you come out

1196
01:14:24,952 –> 01:14:28,326
with wisdom, right? Like you know this, you know that you’re going to smash them

1197
01:14:28,348 –> 01:14:32,360
together and it creates this ball of wisdom that we can all lear from.

1198
01:14:35,370 –> 01:14:38,186
I think when you get to a certain age, and I think I might be

1199
01:14:38,208 –> 01:14:41,162
coming up on that age, but when you get to a certain age,

1200
01:14:41,296 –> 01:14:46,862
you have to recognize that that

1201
01:14:46,996 –> 01:14:50,494
old knowledge is now enough

1202
01:14:50,692 –> 01:14:54,160
backfilled. That the new knowledge you have to

1203
01:14:55,090 –> 01:14:58,254
I don’t know how if I’m wording this right, but I feel like I am

1204
01:14:58,292 –> 01:15:02,020
getting to that age that the new stuff that I learn has to be

1205
01:15:02,390 –> 01:15:06,366
managed with the old stuff that I already know and then relay

1206
01:15:06,398 –> 01:15:09,506
that and relay that in a way that someone is going

1207
01:15:09,528 –> 01:15:12,962
to learn from it. Right? Because they’re coming

1208
01:15:13,016 –> 01:15:15,910
up with the new stuff already. They’re seeing the new stuff,

1209
01:15:15,980 –> 01:15:18,694
and I’m seeing how the new stuff impacts the old stuff.

1210
01:15:18,812 –> 01:15:21,394
But I think we have to riddles.

1211
01:15:21,522 –> 01:15:24,778
Well, but I think we have to separate. What new stuff are we talking about?

1212
01:15:24,864 –> 01:15:28,266
So I separate out. I’ll use

1213
01:15:28,288 –> 01:15:32,102
a perfect example of this. Substac and medium.

1214
01:15:32,246 –> 01:15:35,562
Remember when everybody had medium? Remember when everybody

1215
01:15:35,616 –> 01:15:37,826
was like, oh, go look at my Medium account. Go. Look at my medium.

1216
01:15:37,878 –> 01:15:41,146
Remember that? Right? Okay. Then substat

1217
01:15:41,178 –> 01:15:44,846
came along and people are like, people ran away from Medium and ran right

1218
01:15:44,868 –> 01:15:49,022
to Substac. Now, I’m not

1219
01:15:49,076 –> 01:15:53,026
a person of wisdom either. I have a few interesting

1220
01:15:53,128 –> 01:15:56,580
ideas, but I wouldn’t say I’m a person of wisdom yet.

1221
01:15:57,670 –> 01:16:01,302
Got a few more years before my cranky old man years kick in. And then

1222
01:16:01,436 –> 01:16:04,038
and it’ll be really dynamic. I’ll still be doing the podcast. It’s king to be

1223
01:16:04,044 –> 01:16:04,600
awesome.

1224
01:16:08,170 –> 01:16:12,322
But I looked at the people moving, the writers

1225
01:16:12,386 –> 01:16:16,060
moving from Medium to Substac, and I thought

1226
01:16:17,950 –> 01:16:21,740
that’s just more of the same. Their model is going to be,

1227
01:16:22,350 –> 01:16:26,458
how are you going to get paid differently? Fast forward

1228
01:16:26,624 –> 01:16:30,540
seven, six years and guess what

1229
01:16:30,910 –> 01:16:34,494
Substac’s model is now getting? Getting ready

1230
01:16:34,532 –> 01:16:37,070
to get eaten by Twitter community Notes.

1231
01:16:38,630 –> 01:16:41,886
Am I going to run to Twitter Community Notes because it’s

1232
01:16:41,918 –> 01:16:44,340
the new thing? No,

1233
01:16:47,670 –> 01:16:50,850
I don’t need it now. I think we’ve got to separate out,

1234
01:16:50,920 –> 01:16:54,326
but I think we have to separate that kind of dynamic out from

1235
01:16:54,508 –> 01:16:57,734
the other pieces of that. And that’s where I

1236
01:16:57,772 –> 01:17:00,726
reject like the 40 under 40 list and the 30 under 30 list. I know

1237
01:17:00,748 –> 01:17:04,566
things are nonsense. I agree with that. But I

1238
01:17:04,588 –> 01:17:08,042
was thinking more in the lines of you’re thinking more in the lines of

1239
01:17:08,096 –> 01:17:11,354
these physical I can wrap my hands

1240
01:17:11,392 –> 01:17:14,586
around this. I was thinking more like when I talk to

1241
01:17:14,608 –> 01:17:18,426
young people, like young salespeople again, remind everybody I’m a sales and marketing

1242
01:17:18,458 –> 01:17:22,298
consultant, right? I spend my world around sales and marketing software,

1243
01:17:22,394 –> 01:17:26,094
sales and marketing processes, blah, blah, blah. So when

1244
01:17:26,132 –> 01:17:29,790
I think about learning new things, I’m talking about learning a new

1245
01:17:29,860 –> 01:17:33,378
piece of marketing software or learning and trying to

1246
01:17:33,544 –> 01:17:37,086
blend that in with some of the marketing,

1247
01:17:37,118 –> 01:17:39,986
like some of the things that you learn about sales and marketing at a very

1248
01:17:40,008 –> 01:17:43,086
young age. Because here’s the thing, especially in sales and marketing,

1249
01:17:43,118 –> 01:17:46,246
I tell people all the time, the more things change, the more things stay the

1250
01:17:46,268 –> 01:17:49,766
same. Just remember, when you’re selling a product or service and

1251
01:17:49,868 –> 01:17:51,320
you’re looking at a customer,

1252
01:17:53,210 –> 01:17:56,778
the interaction is going to be the same whether you’re using technology

1253
01:17:56,864 –> 01:18:00,362
or not. You’re going to talk to that person, you’re going to message

1254
01:18:00,416 –> 01:18:04,106
that person. When you’re talking about a

1255
01:18:04,128 –> 01:18:07,334
true enterprise level sales professional,

1256
01:18:07,462 –> 01:18:10,766
no matter what technology you throw in there. People still buy from

1257
01:18:10,788 –> 01:18:14,538
people that they know, like, and trust. People still buy from brands

1258
01:18:14,634 –> 01:18:16,240
that they know, like, and trust.

1259
01:18:19,090 –> 01:18:22,094
It has less to do with the newest, greatest,

1260
01:18:22,142 –> 01:18:25,858
latest technology that’s out there. It has less to

1261
01:18:25,864 –> 01:18:29,314
do with that. Now, the way that you drive that information

1262
01:18:29,432 –> 01:18:33,038
to them might be different. It’s the vehicle might

1263
01:18:33,064 –> 01:18:36,406
change, but the thing is the same. Like,

1264
01:18:36,428 –> 01:18:39,766
the result is the same, and the words are

1265
01:18:39,788 –> 01:18:42,994
the same. It’s the vehicle that changes. And who cares about the vehicle?

1266
01:18:43,042 –> 01:18:46,278
I don’t care what it is. I can change this vehicle 100 times. So this

1267
01:18:46,284 –> 01:18:48,970
is the thing we have to separate, I think. I think we have to separate.

1268
01:18:49,950 –> 01:18:53,402
I’m a big fan. Talk about mart sales marketing. I have

1269
01:18:53,456 –> 01:18:56,906
both of David Ogilvy’s books, ogilvy on Advertising and

1270
01:18:56,928 –> 01:18:59,994
Confessions of an Ad Man. Brilliant books.

1271
01:19:00,122 –> 01:19:04,218
Learned a lot about branding, learned a lot about advertising from reading

1272
01:19:04,234 –> 01:19:07,614
David Ogilvy. You know how David Ogilvy, I mean, he was notorious for this,

1273
01:19:07,652 –> 01:19:11,198
right? Someone would ask him, how do you come up with all these great ads?

1274
01:19:11,294 –> 01:19:14,366
And he would say, I go into a room with a pencil and a bottle

1275
01:19:14,398 –> 01:19:16,900
of whiskey, and I come out and there’s an ad.

1276
01:19:18,070 –> 01:19:22,074
Yeah, you don’t need a fancy

1277
01:19:22,142 –> 01:19:25,426
phone. You don’t need, like, a fancy laptop.

1278
01:19:25,458 –> 01:19:29,026
You don’t need and by the way, you’re in the marketing

1279
01:19:29,058 –> 01:19:31,880
tech space a little bit, so my God,

1280
01:19:32,410 –> 01:19:36,234
the number of Martech things that just have just exploded in the last 25

1281
01:19:36,272 –> 01:19:39,626
years, unbelievably stupid. I’m like, how many more snippets do we

1282
01:19:39,648 –> 01:19:43,082
need? Five years. Hasan the last five

1283
01:19:43,136 –> 01:19:46,906
years, it’s just been ridiculous. It’s insane. And so at

1284
01:19:46,928 –> 01:19:50,334
a certain point, this is the wisdom part, right? At a certain

1285
01:19:50,372 –> 01:19:54,046
point, as a leader, as a sales and marketing person, you got

1286
01:19:54,068 –> 01:19:57,518
to go, I just need a bottle of whiskey and a

1287
01:19:57,524 –> 01:20:01,234
pencil. Absolutely. Isn’t that just good

1288
01:20:01,272 –> 01:20:04,020
enough? Yeah, well, again,

1289
01:20:04,950 –> 01:20:08,498
that’s the mindset for the marketing piece, but on the sales piece,

1290
01:20:08,664 –> 01:20:12,034
it’s even simpler. I just need a handshake,

1291
01:20:12,162 –> 01:20:15,958
right? Let’s shake hands and agree,

1292
01:20:16,044 –> 01:20:18,280
and we’ll go figure out the details later.

1293
01:20:19,690 –> 01:20:23,062
It’s still a thing. The more hands you shake, the more

1294
01:20:23,116 –> 01:20:26,258
deals you do, the more money comes in your pocket.

1295
01:20:26,354 –> 01:20:30,074
This seems to be, like, Sales 101, right? And I never took a sales class,

1296
01:20:30,112 –> 01:20:33,114
ever. I’m terrible. I don’t know anything about sales.

1297
01:20:33,152 –> 01:20:36,590
I know nothing about sales. But I do know that you have to shake hands.

1298
01:20:36,740 –> 01:20:40,286
I get that concept. And so that part has worked out pretty

1299
01:20:40,308 –> 01:20:42,480
well for me, the shaking of the hands part.

1300
01:20:44,850 –> 01:20:48,574
Okay, so what

1301
01:20:48,612 –> 01:20:51,440
can a band of 35 tell a band of 25, then?

1302
01:20:52,770 –> 01:20:55,300
Because it used to you got a. Long way to go.

1303
01:20:58,550 –> 01:21:02,066
Well, okay, maybe in the 17th century,

1304
01:21:02,098 –> 01:21:05,590
maybe the 18th century. But in fairness,

1305
01:21:05,930 –> 01:21:09,670
even today, what a 35 year old tells a 25 year old, in my opinion,

1306
01:21:10,890 –> 01:21:14,346
it really is. Don’t think you know everything,

1307
01:21:14,528 –> 01:21:18,346
right? Leave yourself room to allow yourself to

1308
01:21:18,368 –> 01:21:22,806
learn. Because as much as you think, you know, there’s always it’s

1309
01:21:22,838 –> 01:21:27,050
the whole Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan mentality.

1310
01:21:27,390 –> 01:21:31,258
The fear of always having somebody better than you is real.

1311
01:21:31,344 –> 01:21:35,280
Like, that is a real thing. There’s always going to be somebody coming up.

1312
01:21:36,210 –> 01:21:39,854
I got a piece of advice. When I was a kid, the very

1313
01:21:39,892 –> 01:21:43,406
first management job I ever had, and somebody said to me, listen,

1314
01:21:43,508 –> 01:21:46,146
make sure you’re nice to them on your way up because you’re going to see

1315
01:21:46,168 –> 01:21:49,634
them again on your way down. And I still think that holds true.

1316
01:21:49,672 –> 01:21:52,866
No matter what industry you’re in, you’re going to go up. You’re going to hit

1317
01:21:52,888 –> 01:21:57,090
a peak of some sort. Regardless of where that peak is, whether it’s management,

1318
01:21:57,170 –> 01:22:00,438
ownership, leadership, it doesn’t matter. Wherever that peak is,

1319
01:22:00,524 –> 01:22:04,120
you’re going to come back down to earth at some point, back down to

1320
01:22:04,890 –> 01:22:08,780
entry level, whatever, because that’s just what happens. Think about it.

1321
01:22:09,870 –> 01:22:13,322
I’ve seen a person I’ve known this person most of my life.

1322
01:22:13,376 –> 01:22:17,166
I’ve seen a person own his own business for almost his entire life.

1323
01:22:17,348 –> 01:22:20,682
Sold the business, retired, couldn’t stand retirement.

1324
01:22:20,746 –> 01:22:24,494
Went to work at Walmart as a greeter. This guy

1325
01:22:24,532 –> 01:22:28,302
owned a multimillion dollar company. He just wanted something

1326
01:22:28,356 –> 01:22:31,902
to do. He was 70 years old. He just wanted to go work. So now

1327
01:22:32,036 –> 01:22:34,526
people look at him and they’re like, oh, he’s just the old guy at Walmart.

1328
01:22:34,558 –> 01:22:38,578
And he’s like I’m thinking to myself, if you could just tap into 1oz of

1329
01:22:38,584 –> 01:22:42,354
what that guy knows, I’d be a millionaire too. I don’t understand how people

1330
01:22:42,392 –> 01:22:45,320
just walk by these people and not think. Now, again,

1331
01:22:46,090 –> 01:22:49,894
culturally speaking, this is a completely different question for me because

1332
01:22:49,932 –> 01:22:53,666
culturally speaking, our elders and our ancestors get put on a pedestal.

1333
01:22:53,778 –> 01:22:57,674
We will worship the ground they walk on because we know they’ve been there,

1334
01:22:57,712 –> 01:23:00,906
done that. They have something to say. They have knowledge to

1335
01:23:00,928 –> 01:23:05,286
teach. They have wisdom. We almost inherently

1336
01:23:05,478 –> 01:23:09,722
buy into the fact that our elders have wisdom just because

1337
01:23:09,776 –> 01:23:13,486
that’s part of our culture. So for me, it’s a lot easier than

1338
01:23:13,508 –> 01:23:16,446
a lot of other people to look at an older person. I don’t know if

1339
01:23:16,468 –> 01:23:19,774
anybody there’s organizations out there like

1340
01:23:19,812 –> 01:23:23,234
Score and things like that where you have these senior level mentors that will go

1341
01:23:23,272 –> 01:23:26,306
help you for free. I say, if you’re not using situations like that,

1342
01:23:26,328 –> 01:23:29,778
you’re crazy. Done that, know what they’re doing.

1343
01:23:29,944 –> 01:23:33,714
You have a resource available to you, and it’s free,

1344
01:23:33,832 –> 01:23:36,680
and they have no problem giving you advice. Now,

1345
01:23:37,290 –> 01:23:41,078
you don’t always take it the same thing for me. I’ve had mentors in my

1346
01:23:41,084 –> 01:23:44,038
life where I don’t always take what they say. I listen,

1347
01:23:44,124 –> 01:23:47,962
I thank them. I might not do what their advice, but I

1348
01:23:48,016 –> 01:23:51,210
certainly will have a damn good reason why I’m not going to do what they

1349
01:23:51,280 –> 01:23:54,874
suggested I do. And whether the reason is internally for me or

1350
01:23:54,912 –> 01:23:57,120
externally for pressures that they don’t understand,

1351
01:23:57,650 –> 01:24:02,926
whatever. But the reality of it is that I

1352
01:24:02,948 –> 01:24:06,878
think that if you are embracing whatever

1353
01:24:06,964 –> 01:24:10,770
level you’re at, whether it be age or level

1354
01:24:10,920 –> 01:24:14,286
in a company, if you are embracing that as a leadership

1355
01:24:14,318 –> 01:24:18,414
role, as a wisdom giving role, people will gravitate

1356
01:24:18,462 –> 01:24:22,162
toward you. If you’re willing and you’re open and you’re allowing it and you’re talking

1357
01:24:22,216 –> 01:24:25,558
to people, I do think people will gravitate to it. Now, again, whether they

1358
01:24:25,564 –> 01:24:29,190
listen to you or not, I can’t say, but I think there will be some

1359
01:24:29,340 –> 01:24:33,160
pluses there. Okay. It’s interesting you brought up culture because

1360
01:24:33,950 –> 01:24:37,914
in some parts not

1361
01:24:37,952 –> 01:24:40,650
all, but some parts of African American culture,

1362
01:24:41,310 –> 01:24:45,162
black American culture that reverence for

1363
01:24:45,296 –> 01:24:49,166
the elderly and the agent is there. I grew up

1364
01:24:49,188 –> 01:24:52,846
with my grandmother in my house, right? And so that

1365
01:24:52,868 –> 01:24:56,000
is one of the things that, unfortunately, my children

1366
01:24:56,770 –> 01:25:00,734
have been not able to experience on

1367
01:25:00,772 –> 01:25:04,146
the one hand, but then on the other hand, both of my in laws on

1368
01:25:04,168 –> 01:25:07,474
either side, and my wife’s parents and my parents have

1369
01:25:07,512 –> 01:25:10,434
been able to be independent and work, to your point,

1370
01:25:10,552 –> 01:25:14,466
well into their 70s. Okay. So been

1371
01:25:14,488 –> 01:25:17,766
able to have those productive lives. I’ve actually seen that. Right. I know what that

1372
01:25:17,788 –> 01:25:21,586
looks like. The millionaire working at Walmart. I’m not shocked about that. That doesn’t

1373
01:25:21,618 –> 01:25:25,100
surprise me in the least. And even in my own life,

1374
01:25:25,950 –> 01:25:29,258
I’m trying to set up structures right now where I can at

1375
01:25:29,264 –> 01:25:32,780
least be interested in doing one thing or two things or three things,

1376
01:25:34,670 –> 01:25:37,858
all the way up until I can’t stop doing them anymore,

1377
01:25:37,894 –> 01:25:40,606
until I can’t do them anywhere, whenever that will be, which is hopefully when my

1378
01:25:40,628 –> 01:25:43,680
mental faculties have mental faculties run out.

1379
01:25:45,490 –> 01:25:49,278
The question that occurs to me, though, is and then we’re going to

1380
01:25:49,284 –> 01:25:52,466
turn the corner and get into our last part here. But the question that

1381
01:25:52,488 –> 01:25:55,598
occurs to me, though, as a follow up is this. You talked about elders.

1382
01:25:55,614 –> 01:25:59,700
I talked about elders. There’s a cultural aspect to that

1383
01:26:00,150 –> 01:26:04,402
which is also intention against this larger societal,

1384
01:26:04,466 –> 01:26:08,120
cultural, Western society sort of idea,

1385
01:26:08,570 –> 01:26:12,194
which is something we talked about again in a shorts episode recently,

1386
01:26:12,242 –> 01:26:15,306
I think 77 or 76, this idea of the

1387
01:26:15,328 –> 01:26:19,180
cult of youth. Are we at the end

1388
01:26:20,190 –> 01:26:23,674
finally are we

1389
01:26:23,712 –> 01:26:27,258
finally at the end of the cult of youth? Have we finally

1390
01:26:27,344 –> 01:26:30,506
reached the end of that sort of don’t

1391
01:26:30,538 –> 01:26:34,062
trust anyone under 30 or I’m sorry, don’t trust anyone over

1392
01:26:34,116 –> 01:26:38,182
30 kind of mentality that really started with the baby boomer generation

1393
01:26:38,346 –> 01:26:42,194
in the 1960s and reverberated out,

1394
01:26:42,232 –> 01:26:45,460
reverberated out, reverberated out. And now we’ve got

1395
01:26:46,790 –> 01:26:50,334
Sam Bankwood Freed, who’s easy to pick on, but Travis Kalanick

1396
01:26:50,382 –> 01:26:53,870
or Sam Baked Freed or Elizabeth Holmes, who’s running companies into the ground

1397
01:26:53,950 –> 01:26:57,186
and are terrible leaders, and they’re all under 30. Like, if you’re on the Forbes

1398
01:26:57,218 –> 01:27:00,758
30 under 30 list or 40 under 40 list, you’re probably going

1399
01:27:00,764 –> 01:27:04,786
to get sued for fraud and yeah, I know, but the majority

1400
01:27:04,818 –> 01:27:09,210
of them don’t make it. They’re terrible leaders because they don’t have wisdom.

1401
01:27:09,630 –> 01:27:13,466
Are we at the end of the cult of youth in leadership and

1402
01:27:13,488 –> 01:27:16,886
in business? Or do we still have a few more cycles of reverberation

1403
01:27:16,918 –> 01:27:20,238
of that to go before we’re finally done? I think we have one.

1404
01:27:20,324 –> 01:27:23,758
That’s just my opinion, but I think we are at the tail end

1405
01:27:23,764 –> 01:27:27,134
of it. But I think we have this current generation of 25

1406
01:27:27,172 –> 01:27:30,702
year olds. I think they still have a little bit of that mentality.

1407
01:27:30,846 –> 01:27:34,546
Okay. But I think

1408
01:27:34,568 –> 01:27:38,306
we’ll see it come out of the college graduates of the

1409
01:27:38,328 –> 01:27:41,598
next year or two, maybe three, that are going to

1410
01:27:41,624 –> 01:27:45,058
start again. I have a daughter who’s she’s

1411
01:27:45,074 –> 01:27:49,078
going into her senior year in college and

1412
01:27:49,164 –> 01:27:52,898
her thought process is already different than my 25 and 28 year

1413
01:27:52,924 –> 01:27:54,540
old. Okay.

1414
01:27:56,670 –> 01:28:00,166
Unfortunately, I kind of bubble them in with that group that you’re

1415
01:28:00,198 –> 01:28:03,674
talking about. And I think that now,

1416
01:28:03,712 –> 01:28:06,954
again, my kids grew up in our culture, so I think there is some cultural

1417
01:28:07,002 –> 01:28:10,734
differences that they kind of still hold to because

1418
01:28:10,852 –> 01:28:14,078
it was just embedded in them from a very young age.

1419
01:28:14,244 –> 01:28:18,222
But in the corporate world, I think they fall

1420
01:28:18,276 –> 01:28:21,266
right in line with that group that you’re talking about that don’t trust anybody over

1421
01:28:21,288 –> 01:28:25,794
30, whatever. But I think that my daughter’s group

1422
01:28:25,912 –> 01:28:29,058
and you notice I’m saying group and not generation, right? Because I don’t

1423
01:28:29,064 –> 01:28:32,594
think this is generational. I think we’re talking about differences in like five

1424
01:28:32,632 –> 01:28:34,770
years, six year groupage.

1425
01:28:36,170 –> 01:28:39,106
I think my daughter’s group coming up as they graduate.

1426
01:28:39,218 –> 01:28:42,486
I think just in talking to her and her

1427
01:28:42,508 –> 01:28:46,074
and her friends, I think she does understand that people in their

1428
01:28:46,112 –> 01:28:50,250
thirty s and forty s in the workforce hold

1429
01:28:50,320 –> 01:28:53,626
a different kind of value. I think she does understand that,

1430
01:28:53,648 –> 01:28:56,970
but I think it’s slower than we would have liked,

1431
01:28:57,050 –> 01:29:00,734
is all I’m saying. Yeah, well and I think there’s probably well,

1432
01:29:00,772 –> 01:29:04,382
not I think there’s probably there’s clearly been a lot of damage along the way.

1433
01:29:04,516 –> 01:29:05,200
Absolutely.

1434
01:29:09,270 –> 01:29:12,418
Anyway, yeah. Again, we could talk about certain topics. For a

1435
01:29:12,424 –> 01:29:13,060
long time.

1436
01:29:16,390 –> 01:29:19,682
I know I said one last one other thing,

1437
01:29:19,736 –> 01:29:23,000
I think that is worthwhile to point out. In that little section that I read

1438
01:29:25,210 –> 01:29:28,726
Eleanor was talking about, one of her critiques of Willoughby was

1439
01:29:28,748 –> 01:29:31,880
that he basically opened his mouth and let everything fall out. Right.

1440
01:29:32,730 –> 01:29:36,074
I do think that it is a mark of wisdom, even as a person

1441
01:29:36,112 –> 01:29:39,562
who hosts a podcast and makes my living, or has

1442
01:29:39,616 –> 01:29:42,650
made my living in the past from running my mouth, quite frankly.

1443
01:29:44,030 –> 01:29:47,470
There are times, and I even tell my kids this where everything

1444
01:29:47,540 –> 01:29:51,680
doesn’t need to be sated, everything doesn’t need to be responded to.

1445
01:29:52,210 –> 01:29:55,646
And sometimes that in and of itself, that silence in

1446
01:29:55,668 –> 01:29:59,562
and of itself is an act of politeness and decorum.

1447
01:29:59,706 –> 01:30:02,160
It may not feel like it in the moment.

1448
01:30:04,790 –> 01:30:07,714
I know you want to move on, but I have to say this. I have

1449
01:30:07,752 –> 01:30:11,346
to go ahead. Exactly what you’re talking about. Exactly what

1450
01:30:11,368 –> 01:30:14,514
I just said. Here’s the difference in the two groups of age groups. My son

1451
01:30:14,552 –> 01:30:17,958
will send me a text, I will not reply. He sees me, he says,

1452
01:30:18,044 –> 01:30:20,520
you never replied to my text. What the heck? And I go,

1453
01:30:21,210 –> 01:30:24,658
you didn’t ask me a question. There was nothing to reply to. My daughter sends

1454
01:30:24,674 –> 01:30:28,950
me a text, I don’t reply, never talks about it again. Like she just realizes

1455
01:30:29,030 –> 01:30:32,634
that it didn’t require a reply. I didn’t have to

1456
01:30:32,672 –> 01:30:36,406
say anything back. You sent me a statement of

1457
01:30:36,448 –> 01:30:39,678
knowledge that I took and accepted and said thanks, and I

1458
01:30:39,684 –> 01:30:42,910
didn’t even have to say, Good point, my son,

1459
01:30:42,980 –> 01:30:46,686
I have to say thanks. My daughter, nothing.

1460
01:30:46,868 –> 01:30:49,060
They both react the same way.

1461
01:30:53,590 –> 01:30:56,660
Anyway, back to the book,

1462
01:30:58,230 –> 01:31:01,862
sensibility. Remember I said it is the

1463
01:31:01,916 –> 01:31:06,178
Arcturus Holdings Limited to 2022 edition,

1464
01:31:06,354 –> 01:31:10,534
published by Arcturus Publishing, Limited, 26 27

1465
01:31:10,572 –> 01:31:14,246
Bickles Yard, 151 to 153 Bermanzi

1466
01:31:14,278 –> 01:31:17,500
Street, London. So go check them out.

1467
01:31:20,910 –> 01:31:24,682
I don’t know much about Arcturus Holdings Limited, but I do like this

1468
01:31:24,736 –> 01:31:28,506
addition of Citizen sensibility. It feels hefty

1469
01:31:28,538 –> 01:31:32,746
right, it feels solid. So we’re

1470
01:31:32,778 –> 01:31:36,702
going to move into this piece here, and it’s a very short little piece

1471
01:31:36,756 –> 01:31:40,538
that we will talk about. Colonel Brandon receives a

1472
01:31:40,564 –> 01:31:44,402
letter and he leaves. Won’t get into why

1473
01:31:44,456 –> 01:31:48,242
he leaves, but he leaves when he receives a letter, going back to

1474
01:31:48,376 –> 01:31:51,510
the point that we were making earlier about the writing of letters.

1475
01:31:52,010 –> 01:31:55,942
So Colonel Brandon, that man of 35 now,

1476
01:31:55,996 –> 01:32:00,070
has busted out and we open Chapter 14

1477
01:32:00,490 –> 01:32:03,240
with the well,

1478
01:32:04,190 –> 01:32:08,202
with the results of that leaving from

1479
01:32:08,256 –> 01:32:11,958
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. The sudden termination of Colonel Brandon’s

1480
01:32:11,974 –> 01:32:15,098
visit at the park with his steadiness in concealing its cause

1481
01:32:15,264 –> 01:32:18,570
filled the mind and raised the wonder of Mrs. Jennings for two or three days.

1482
01:32:18,640 –> 01:32:22,142
She was a great wonderer, as everyone must be, who takes a very lively interest

1483
01:32:22,196 –> 01:32:25,626
in all the comings and goings of all their acquaintance.

1484
01:32:25,818 –> 01:32:28,766
She wondered, with little intermission what could be the reason of it, was sure there

1485
01:32:28,788 –> 01:32:31,758
must be some bad news, and thought over every kind of distress that could have

1486
01:32:31,764 –> 01:32:35,330
befallen him, with a fixed determination that he should not escape them

1487
01:32:35,400 –> 01:32:38,402
at all. Something very melancholy must be the matter.

1488
01:32:38,456 –> 01:32:41,282
I am sure, said she, I could see it in his face, poor man.

1489
01:32:41,336 –> 01:32:44,526
I’m afraid his circumstances may be bad. The estate

1490
01:32:44,558 –> 01:32:47,794
at Della Ford was never reckoned more than 2000 a year and his brother

1491
01:32:47,842 –> 01:32:52,182
left everything sadly involved. I do think he must have been sent

1492
01:32:52,236 –> 01:32:55,718
for about money matters. For what else can it be, I wonder whether it

1493
01:32:55,724 –> 01:32:59,066
is so. I would give anything to know the truth of it. Perhaps it is

1494
01:32:59,088 –> 01:33:02,154
about Ms. Williams. And by the by, I dare say it is

1495
01:33:02,192 –> 01:33:04,860
because he looks so conscious when I mentioned her.

1496
01:33:05,470 –> 01:33:08,966
Maybe she is. Ill in town. Nothing in the world more likely,

1497
01:33:08,998 –> 01:33:12,366
for I have an ocean. She is always rather sickly. I would lay any

1498
01:33:12,388 –> 01:33:15,918
wager it is about Ms. Williams. It is not so likely that he should be

1499
01:33:15,924 –> 01:33:19,406
distressed in his circumstances now, for he is a very prudent man, and to be

1500
01:33:19,428 –> 01:33:23,154
sure, must have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be.

1501
01:33:23,272 –> 01:33:26,738
Maybe his sister is worse at Avignon and has sent for him.

1502
01:33:26,904 –> 01:33:30,450
He’s setting off in such a hurry. Seems very like it. Well, I wish him

1503
01:33:30,520 –> 01:33:33,478
out of all his trouble with all my heart and a good wife into the

1504
01:33:33,484 –> 01:33:36,706
bargain. So wondered, so talked Mrs.

1505
01:33:36,738 –> 01:33:40,294
Jennings, her opinion varying with every fresh conjecture and

1506
01:33:40,332 –> 01:33:43,234
all seemingly equally probable as they arose.

1507
01:33:43,362 –> 01:33:47,094
Eleanor, though she felt really interested in the welfare of Cronal Brandon,

1508
01:33:47,142 –> 01:33:50,234
could not bestow all the wonder on his going so suddenly away,

1509
01:33:50,352 –> 01:33:53,786
which Ms. Jennings was desirous of her feeling. For besides that

1510
01:33:53,808 –> 01:33:57,834
the circumstance did not, in her opinion, justify such lasting amazement or

1511
01:33:57,872 –> 01:34:01,694
variety of speculation, her wonder was otherwise disposed of it.

1512
01:34:01,892 –> 01:34:05,198
It was engrossed by the or extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on the

1513
01:34:05,204 –> 01:34:08,526
subject, which they must know to be peculiarly interesting to

1514
01:34:08,548 –> 01:34:12,258
them all. As the silence continued every day made it appear more strange and

1515
01:34:12,264 –> 01:34:15,774
more incompatible with the disposition of both. Why they should not openly

1516
01:34:15,822 –> 01:34:19,506
acknowledge to her mother and herself what their constant behavior to each other

1517
01:34:19,608 –> 01:34:23,010
had declared to have taken place, eleanor could not imagine.

1518
01:34:23,670 –> 01:34:27,238
She could easily conceive that marriage might not be immediately in

1519
01:34:27,244 –> 01:34:31,426
their power for though Willoughby was independent, there was no reason to believe him rich.

1520
01:34:31,618 –> 01:34:35,030
His estate had been raided by Sir John at about six or 700 a year

1521
01:34:35,100 –> 01:34:38,006
but he lived at an expense to which that income could hardly be equal.

1522
01:34:38,038 –> 01:34:41,446
And he himself had often complained of his poverty. For this strange

1523
01:34:41,478 –> 01:34:45,206
kind of secrecy maintained by them relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed

1524
01:34:45,238 –> 01:34:49,118
nothing at all, she could not account. And it was so wholly contradictory to their

1525
01:34:49,124 –> 01:34:52,334
general opinions and practice that a doubt sometimes entered her mind of their

1526
01:34:52,372 –> 01:34:56,302
really being engaged. And this doubt was enough to prevent her making

1527
01:34:56,356 –> 01:34:59,806
any inquiry of Marianne. Nothing could be

1528
01:34:59,828 –> 01:35:03,098
more expressive of attachment to them all than Willoughby’s behavior to

1529
01:35:03,124 –> 01:35:06,626
Mariana had all the distinguishing tenderness which a lover’s heart could give. And to

1530
01:35:06,648 –> 01:35:09,554
the rest of the family it was the affectionate attention of a son and a

1531
01:35:09,592 –> 01:35:13,106
brother. The cottage seemed to be considered and loved by him

1532
01:35:13,128 –> 01:35:16,354
as his home. Many more of his hours were spent there than at Allenham.

1533
01:35:16,402 –> 01:35:19,894
And if no general engagement collected them at the park, the exercise of which called

1534
01:35:19,932 –> 01:35:23,178
him out in the morning, was almost certain of ending there, where the

1535
01:35:23,184 –> 01:35:27,414
rest of the day was spent by himself at the side of Marianne

1536
01:35:27,542 –> 01:35:32,330
and by his favorite pointer at her feet.

1537
01:35:40,910 –> 01:35:44,798
Why did Colonel Brandon leave what was he rutted up and jumping about?

1538
01:35:44,884 –> 01:35:48,286
Oh, my gosh. There’s going to be all this speculation. We’re going to make up

1539
01:35:48,308 –> 01:35:52,190
stories in our head because we couldn’t king out from the person

1540
01:35:52,340 –> 01:35:54,580
the truth of the matter that we wanted.

1541
01:35:55,750 –> 01:36:00,242
Mrs. Jennings stands in as an avatar for

1542
01:36:00,296 –> 01:36:04,126
the modern era. Mrs. Jennings would have really liked Facebook and Twitter.

1543
01:36:04,238 –> 01:36:07,246
We talk a lot about social media on this platform, but she would have loved

1544
01:36:07,278 –> 01:36:11,394
that. Turns out that gossip

1545
01:36:11,442 –> 01:36:15,190
is no new thing under the sun. And making up stories in our heads

1546
01:36:18,190 –> 01:36:20,678
and then elaborating on them as truth,

1547
01:36:20,854 –> 01:36:24,474
particularly objective truth, is not that

1548
01:36:24,512 –> 01:36:28,234
new. In that

1549
01:36:28,272 –> 01:36:32,362
little clip, we do see some faint beginning parallels

1550
01:36:32,506 –> 01:36:36,266
in the first part of Sense and Sensibility to Shakespeare’s King

1551
01:36:36,298 –> 01:36:39,134
Lear, which we covered in episode number 56.

1552
01:36:39,332 –> 01:36:42,818
And if you recall, King Lear is the

1553
01:36:42,824 –> 01:36:46,942
story of the King Lear who has three daughters

1554
01:36:47,006 –> 01:36:50,338
reagan, Cordelia, and Gonoril. And he divides up the

1555
01:36:50,344 –> 01:36:54,670
kingdom among them. Since its incomability is King Lear in reverse

1556
01:36:54,830 –> 01:36:58,350
with Mrs. Dasherwood playing would

1557
01:36:58,360 –> 01:37:01,298
be cast in the role of King Lear and then, of course, Mary, Anne,

1558
01:37:01,314 –> 01:37:04,310
Eleanor and Margaret in the role of the three sisters.

1559
01:37:04,730 –> 01:37:08,006
Now, that is a feminist critique of Sense and

1560
01:37:08,028 –> 01:37:11,354
Sensibility. But Jane Austen’s writing, as we made the

1561
01:37:11,392 –> 01:37:15,046
point in Persuasion, and I feel it needs to be made here jane Austen’s writing

1562
01:37:15,078 –> 01:37:19,290
defies feminism. It defies easy

1563
01:37:19,360 –> 01:37:22,170
categorization, easy pigeonholing.

1564
01:37:22,250 –> 01:37:25,818
Right? Austin was consumed,

1565
01:37:25,834 –> 01:37:28,974
and we’ve already mentioned this white revealing the tyranny of the small

1566
01:37:29,012 –> 01:37:32,490
things, as we saw in that little that little piece there.

1567
01:37:32,580 –> 01:37:36,894
Mrs. Jennings running around creating towers

1568
01:37:36,942 –> 01:37:40,434
of truth in her head. Eleanor Critiquing Willoughby and his

1569
01:37:40,472 –> 01:37:43,922
poverty, and, of course, Willoughby claiming poverty in order

1570
01:37:43,976 –> 01:37:47,094
to lure in Marianne, and, of course,

1571
01:37:47,132 –> 01:37:49,590
Marianne allowing herself to be lured.

1572
01:37:50,810 –> 01:37:55,122
She was also consumed. Austen was with presenting and representing

1573
01:37:55,186 –> 01:37:58,626
social hierarchical structures and the nature of the struggle

1574
01:37:58,658 –> 01:38:02,486
that the classes were having in England to maintain those structures.

1575
01:38:02,598 –> 01:38:06,330
They weren’t, as in our modern era, with our elites trying to

1576
01:38:06,480 –> 01:38:10,006
pull up the structures. And by the way, the characters in Jane Austin’s

1577
01:38:10,038 –> 01:38:13,582
novels were very often middle class, what we would call middle class.

1578
01:38:13,636 –> 01:38:16,894
They were trying to maintain middle class decorum. They were trying to maintain middle class

1579
01:38:16,932 –> 01:38:20,142
structure. They were trying to maintain a middle class way

1580
01:38:20,196 –> 01:38:24,162
of civilization, right, in order

1581
01:38:24,216 –> 01:38:28,094
to maintain society. There is a weird

1582
01:38:28,142 –> 01:38:36,194
modern belief and I heard this recently, that in

1583
01:38:36,232 –> 01:38:39,826
transcending the system or if you’re not able to transcend

1584
01:38:39,858 –> 01:38:43,126
the system that you are in and we talked a little

1585
01:38:43,148 –> 01:38:46,438
bit about this just now if you’re not able to transcend the system that you

1586
01:38:46,444 –> 01:38:49,910
are unfortunately, happy to be born in, then you can rebel against

1587
01:38:49,980 –> 01:38:54,250
it and you can destroy it. We have this idea now as moderns,

1588
01:38:54,750 –> 01:38:58,234
but the fact of the matter is, and Austin is very, very real about this,

1589
01:38:58,272 –> 01:39:00,960
as most genuinely great authors are,

1590
01:39:01,570 –> 01:39:04,410
steinbeck, Hemingway, faulkner,

1591
01:39:04,490 –> 01:39:08,474
Shakespeare, even the Greeks, the tragedy

1592
01:39:08,522 –> 01:39:12,154
of human hierarchies and the tragedy of human systems. And Austin

1593
01:39:12,202 –> 01:39:15,886
demonstrates this just in this little clip. It’s in its instability. The tragedy of

1594
01:39:15,908 –> 01:39:19,220
all this is that you’re going to operate in some kind of a system

1595
01:39:19,750 –> 01:39:23,570
and that the rules in that system were made for you before you were born.

1596
01:39:24,070 –> 01:39:27,620
And you may not like it and you may have a thought about it,

1597
01:39:28,150 –> 01:39:32,178
but you’re going to serve the system. As Bob

1598
01:39:32,194 –> 01:39:34,786
Dylan said back in the day, I don’t care whether you’re the pope in Rome

1599
01:39:34,818 –> 01:39:38,570
or the homeless man on the street in San Francisco. You’re going to serve somebody

1600
01:39:38,640 –> 01:39:42,666
or something. You might want to choose what

1601
01:39:42,688 –> 01:39:45,846
you’re going to serve, but you’re going to serve.

1602
01:39:45,958 –> 01:39:49,510
There’s no such thing as floating transcendently above

1603
01:39:49,590 –> 01:39:53,642
the system, above the thing. And Austen

1604
01:39:53,706 –> 01:39:57,040
tries to ground that idea in

1605
01:39:58,050 –> 01:39:59,470
sentence sensibility.

1606
01:40:01,730 –> 01:40:04,654
So, Tom, there’s this idea and we haven’t really talked about on the podcast,

1607
01:40:04,702 –> 01:40:08,020
you and I have not this idea of hierarchies, right?

1608
01:40:08,630 –> 01:40:11,730
There’s the men, there’s the women. There’s who’s getting what money,

1609
01:40:11,800 –> 01:40:15,374
there’s who’s inheriting what, who’s poor,

1610
01:40:15,422 –> 01:40:19,046
who’s rich. It’s kind of gauche for

1611
01:40:19,068 –> 01:40:22,934
us to talk about that, but we do care very much about

1612
01:40:22,972 –> 01:40:25,926
it, and we do care very much about hierarchies. And I always just tell my

1613
01:40:25,948 –> 01:40:29,634
kids, I’ve recently begun

1614
01:40:29,682 –> 01:40:32,826
in the last couple of years telling my kids, if you want to move to

1615
01:40:32,848 –> 01:40:36,262
the top of a dominance hierarchy, be the big the Venus dog on the block,

1616
01:40:36,326 –> 01:40:40,106
basically, that’s what you have to be in order to move to the top of

1617
01:40:40,128 –> 01:40:43,690
a dominance hierarchy. But very often, people don’t get that message,

1618
01:40:43,760 –> 01:40:47,454
and leaders really hate to, like, be seen in that

1619
01:40:47,492 –> 01:40:51,086
mode. They like to be seen in the sort of Steve Jobs technocratic kind

1620
01:40:51,108 –> 01:40:54,750
of Vneck whatever.

1621
01:40:54,820 –> 01:40:57,970
Not Vneck, a turtleneck, black turtleneck sort of mode.

1622
01:40:59,590 –> 01:41:02,786
But I’m getting a sense there’s a shift that’s happening in the Zeitgeist. I mean,

1623
01:41:02,808 –> 01:41:06,258
for God’s sakes, I just saw recently that Mark Zuckerberg was at a Brazilian jiu

1624
01:41:06,274 –> 01:41:09,640
jitsu tournament, right?

1625
01:41:12,650 –> 01:41:16,086
What’s happening with hierarchies? It’s not like we’re throwing them out, right? So how

1626
01:41:16,108 –> 01:41:19,474
do leaders navigate hierarchies? How do they operate in hierarchies

1627
01:41:19,522 –> 01:41:22,506
that aren’t really made for them? And by the way, this is a challenge for

1628
01:41:22,528 –> 01:41:25,386
all of us because we were all born into this world, and we have to

1629
01:41:25,408 –> 01:41:28,906
operate inside of the system. Yeah, this was

1630
01:41:28,928 –> 01:41:31,806
a good one for me, too, when I started thinking about and as you were

1631
01:41:31,828 –> 01:41:37,518
reading the section of the book and thinking about so

1632
01:41:37,604 –> 01:41:40,000
there’s a little bit of like that.

1633
01:41:41,730 –> 01:41:45,362
And we saw this a little bit in the 2008 crash when

1634
01:41:45,416 –> 01:41:48,686
there was just a boatload of layoffs, right? People were getting laid

1635
01:41:48,718 –> 01:41:53,218
off left and right. And you basically had there

1636
01:41:53,224 –> 01:41:56,680
was a huge surge of

1637
01:41:57,450 –> 01:42:00,040
people starting their own companies because of it. Right?

1638
01:42:00,970 –> 01:42:04,502
In other words, I didn’t like the way that

1639
01:42:04,556 –> 01:42:08,120
hierarchy treated me, I’m just going to go create my own

1640
01:42:08,570 –> 01:42:12,106
I’m just going to make my own hierarchy. But the thing that I

1641
01:42:12,128 –> 01:42:15,130
think people forget is exactly what you’re talking about.

1642
01:42:15,280 –> 01:42:18,954
Even if I start my own company, I own my own company.

1643
01:42:18,992 –> 01:42:22,414
I start it, I build it. I’m the top dog in

1644
01:42:22,452 –> 01:42:26,126
my hierarchy. There’s still a bigger hierarchy out

1645
01:42:26,148 –> 01:42:29,322
there that I still feed into that machine,

1646
01:42:29,386 –> 01:42:33,540
right? Unless you are

1647
01:42:34,470 –> 01:42:38,002
the Forbes 100, when it comes to a corporate sense

1648
01:42:38,056 –> 01:42:41,106
or ownership sense of a company, unless you are the

1649
01:42:41,128 –> 01:42:44,994
Forbes 100, you are being dictated to by

1650
01:42:45,032 –> 01:42:49,026
some sort of something above you, right? In the tech world it’s Apple

1651
01:42:49,058 –> 01:42:52,502
or Google. In the retail world it’s Amazon, whatever, right?

1652
01:42:52,556 –> 01:42:54,840
Unless you are one of those top companies,

1653
01:42:56,090 –> 01:42:58,614
if you try to look at it from a different like if you try to

1654
01:42:58,652 –> 01:43:02,406
separate that out and look at it from a different perspective, even there’s hierarchies

1655
01:43:02,438 –> 01:43:06,198
even in our own families, right? Like again, we were talking about our elders

1656
01:43:06,214 –> 01:43:08,970
and cultural advances to the elders.

1657
01:43:10,210 –> 01:43:13,680
And now in today’s world,

1658
01:43:14,210 –> 01:43:17,514
you do have family members that feel like they don’t

1659
01:43:17,562 –> 01:43:21,418
belong in that hierarchy and that they are trying to reinvent

1660
01:43:21,434 –> 01:43:26,014
themselves or move themselves out of that firing

1661
01:43:26,062 –> 01:43:29,854
line. And they’re trying to put themselves in a different firing

1662
01:43:29,902 –> 01:43:33,134
line. And I’m trying to be pretty generic

1663
01:43:33,182 –> 01:43:37,700
here, but again,

1664
01:43:38,330 –> 01:43:41,480
and I’ve said this on this podcast more than once,

1665
01:43:42,090 –> 01:43:46,626
I think the true key here is regardless

1666
01:43:46,658 –> 01:43:50,202
of whether you’re trying to build your own hierarchy, falling within

1667
01:43:50,336 –> 01:43:53,722
the current one moving, manipulate, whatever. It’s really

1668
01:43:53,776 –> 01:43:57,912
about how

1669
01:43:57,966 –> 01:44:01,832
you treat yourself, how you treat

1670
01:44:01,886 –> 01:44:06,030
your peers and how you are allowing other people to treat yourself

1671
01:44:06,400 –> 01:44:10,236
because it is entirely up to you. You dictate how people treat you.

1672
01:44:10,338 –> 01:44:13,664
You dictate how you treat other people. You are the only one

1673
01:44:13,702 –> 01:44:16,290
that you have 100% control over, right?

1674
01:44:18,820 –> 01:44:22,096
There’s a book by Rick Patino called Success Is

1675
01:44:22,118 –> 01:44:27,476
a Choice. He talks about how

1676
01:44:27,578 –> 01:44:31,392
your decision making process will directly impact

1677
01:44:31,456 –> 01:44:35,748
your success. Not somebody else, not the government,

1678
01:44:35,834 –> 01:44:39,544
not some big company you work for. You yourself will make

1679
01:44:39,582 –> 01:44:42,696
decisions that will impact your own success.

1680
01:44:42,878 –> 01:44:46,010
And I’m going to give you an example of something real quick.

1681
01:44:48,140 –> 01:44:51,368
As I was reading this book, one of my sons at the

1682
01:44:51,374 –> 01:44:54,728
time was about twelve years old

1683
01:44:54,894 –> 01:44:58,156
and something that I read the night before really impacted me. So I looked

1684
01:44:58,178 –> 01:45:01,452
at him and I were talking about it and I was like,

1685
01:45:01,506 –> 01:45:05,132
yeah, do you get this? You’re twelve

1686
01:45:05,186 –> 01:45:08,544
years old. You have your whole life ahead of you. Every decision you make could

1687
01:45:08,582 –> 01:45:11,648
impact your success. You are in control.

1688
01:45:11,814 –> 01:45:15,376
And I’m trying to beat this into his head and he goes,

1689
01:45:15,478 –> 01:45:18,624
no I’m not. He goes,

1690
01:45:18,742 –> 01:45:21,876
I got to go to school today. He’s like, I have to go to school?

1691
01:45:21,898 –> 01:45:24,950
And I go, no, but that’s the brilliance of this.

1692
01:45:26,040 –> 01:45:29,364
It’s your choice to go to school. He goes, okay, so I can stay home.

1693
01:45:29,402 –> 01:45:32,304
I go, yeah, I go, but then you have to deal with the consequences,

1694
01:45:32,352 –> 01:45:35,204
like, of me. And he goes, well, then I have to go to school,

1695
01:45:35,242 –> 01:45:38,596
because I don’t want no, the choice is stay home or go to school.

1696
01:45:38,698 –> 01:45:40,952
You choose to go to school because you don’t want to deal with the consequences.

1697
01:45:40,976 –> 01:45:44,332
But this is a similar kind of argument or not argument. This is a similar

1698
01:45:44,386 –> 01:45:47,756
kind of philosophy here. It’s still your choice on whether or not

1699
01:45:47,858 –> 01:45:50,844
you have to operate within the hierarchy or not.

1700
01:45:50,962 –> 01:45:54,216
We choose to because we don’t want the consequences

1701
01:45:54,328 –> 01:45:58,028
that are outside of that world. We tend to, and I

1702
01:45:58,034 –> 01:46:01,024
don’t want to say we fall in line because we try to make our own

1703
01:46:01,062 –> 01:46:04,144
waves. We try to ripple it. We try. People try.

1704
01:46:04,262 –> 01:46:07,744
But like I said, unless you’re the Forbes 100, they are the ones

1705
01:46:07,782 –> 01:46:11,476
really creating that hierarchy, and then everybody else just kind of falls in a line,

1706
01:46:11,578 –> 01:46:14,724
and you could try to disrupt them. And I’m sure the Forbes 100 will

1707
01:46:14,762 –> 01:46:18,932
love the fact that somebody new dips into that. Probably not.

1708
01:46:18,986 –> 01:46:22,168
I’m just kidding. Because they love having

1709
01:46:22,254 –> 01:46:25,844
the 100 be the same for the last ten years or whatever. They thrive

1710
01:46:25,892 –> 01:46:29,604
on that because they’re the ones dictating those hierarchies in the corporate

1711
01:46:29,652 –> 01:46:33,256
world. Outside of the corporate world, I think there’s

1712
01:46:33,368 –> 01:46:37,244
way too many opportunities, like, to talk about

1713
01:46:37,362 –> 01:46:40,812
this is way too much. It’s too big of a subject. But I think it

1714
01:46:40,866 –> 01:46:44,416
will well, like. I said, I like that you

1715
01:46:44,438 –> 01:46:47,504
talked about consequences, right? Because we don’t one of the points I’ve made

1716
01:46:47,542 –> 01:46:53,056
on this podcast as well is that we

1717
01:46:53,158 –> 01:46:56,896
as leaders sometimes refuse to engage

1718
01:46:56,928 –> 01:47:01,104
in consequentialist thinking. We refuse to acknowledge

1719
01:47:01,152 –> 01:47:04,870
that there will be a consequence for this thing.

1720
01:47:06,280 –> 01:47:09,880
We sort of want to pretend or want to act as if

1721
01:47:10,030 –> 01:47:14,324
we can make decisions or take actions or serve hierarchies

1722
01:47:14,372 –> 01:47:18,024
in a vacuum. And I wish my

1723
01:47:18,062 –> 01:47:21,884
genuine wish for leaders is that they would say to their

1724
01:47:21,922 –> 01:47:25,912
followers, we’re in this hierarchy. There are consequences

1725
01:47:25,976 –> 01:47:29,310
for being in this hierarchy. This is what they are.

1726
01:47:30,800 –> 01:47:34,156
Are you in or out? Love it or leave it. Are you in or

1727
01:47:34,178 –> 01:47:37,648
out? Right? You don’t have to do

1728
01:47:37,654 –> 01:47:41,420
it in a direct way that makes everybody feel uncomfortable,

1729
01:47:41,500 –> 01:47:44,924
that’s confrontational. You can be winsome,

1730
01:47:44,972 –> 01:47:48,500
and you can be introverted, and you can do all these okay,

1731
01:47:48,570 –> 01:47:51,696
you can do all those things. Deliver it however the hell you want to deliver

1732
01:47:51,728 –> 01:47:54,900
it, but deliver that message. Deliver the message that,

1733
01:47:54,970 –> 01:47:58,356
listen, this thing

1734
01:47:58,378 –> 01:48:01,768
that we’re doing here, you talked about a small business that was started in

1735
01:48:01,774 –> 01:48:04,856
2008. Okay, let’s go with that. This small business that

1736
01:48:04,878 –> 01:48:07,640
we started in 2008 has a hierarchy.

1737
01:48:08,860 –> 01:48:12,812
I founded it. I stay up late at night thinking about it.

1738
01:48:12,946 –> 01:48:16,332
You all collect a salary if you want

1739
01:48:16,386 –> 01:48:18,030
to, at a certain point,

1740
01:48:19,520 –> 01:48:22,764
start thinking about the things I’m thinking about as the owner of this

1741
01:48:22,802 –> 01:48:26,880
business, stop collecting a salary

1742
01:48:28,100 –> 01:48:30,720
and walk with me down this path.

1743
01:48:31,300 –> 01:48:34,850
That’s the honest statement that has to be made.

1744
01:48:35,540 –> 01:48:38,852
If I’m a manager, not one of the Forbes 100

1745
01:48:38,906 –> 01:48:43,312
but if I’m in a manager in one of the Forbes

1746
01:48:43,376 –> 01:48:47,220
10,000 businesses that

1747
01:48:47,290 –> 01:48:50,468
serve the Forbes 100, by the way, that are on the supply chain,

1748
01:48:50,564 –> 01:48:53,960
if I’m a manager, leader inside of those structures.

1749
01:48:54,460 –> 01:48:57,770
My role is to say to those individuals look,

1750
01:48:58,540 –> 01:49:02,792
we have all agreed by dint of our

1751
01:49:02,846 –> 01:49:05,708
voting with our feet and collecting a paycheck to be here.

1752
01:49:05,794 –> 01:49:09,832
We voted with our feet. That is the decision we made. There are consequences

1753
01:49:09,896 –> 01:49:12,824
to that decision. There’s monetary consequences.

1754
01:49:12,872 –> 01:49:17,144
There’s financial consequences, there’s economic consequences, there’s personnel consequences.

1755
01:49:17,272 –> 01:49:20,736
These are all of the plethora of consequences that exist for us. If we

1756
01:49:20,758 –> 01:49:23,856
want to experience different ones, we have to make different decisions. And by

1757
01:49:23,878 –> 01:49:26,416
the way, we have to do this actively and intentionally, which is why my book

1758
01:49:26,438 –> 01:49:30,016
is called Intentional Leadership, right? Because if we’re not doing that with our brain

1759
01:49:30,048 –> 01:49:34,470
on and we’re doing it with our brain off, then we’re engaged in

1760
01:49:35,240 –> 01:49:38,420
we’re engaged in story building structure. Like Mrs. Jennings.

1761
01:49:38,860 –> 01:49:42,632
We’re building structures of stories about reality that may have absolutely nothing

1762
01:49:42,686 –> 01:49:47,400
to do with the objective thing that’s out there. Right. I wish more leaders

1763
01:49:48,940 –> 01:49:52,364
were focused in that kind

1764
01:49:52,402 –> 01:49:55,900
of way, because I think then leadership becomes

1765
01:49:56,400 –> 01:50:00,124
less tyrannical and it becomes more collaborative, but in a real.

1766
01:50:00,162 –> 01:50:03,724
Kind of way, there’s a very simple explanation

1767
01:50:03,772 –> 01:50:06,716
as to why they’re not okay. What’s a simple explanation?

1768
01:50:06,908 –> 01:50:07,760
Scary.

1769
01:50:13,220 –> 01:50:16,530
And with that, they’re scared to do it.

1770
01:50:18,120 –> 01:50:22,036
You’re not wrong. It is scary. Scary to kind of say that, because if you

1771
01:50:22,058 –> 01:50:26,260
don’t, if you well,

1772
01:50:26,330 –> 01:50:28,950
there’s consequences to saying that. Right, exactly.

1773
01:50:30,840 –> 01:50:34,536
There’s consequences to acknowledging the hierarchy. There’s consequences to well,

1774
01:50:34,558 –> 01:50:38,116
and you know what? Maybe it’s a weird thing. So I transitioned

1775
01:50:38,148 –> 01:50:41,416
from being in a higher education hierarchy to owning my

1776
01:50:41,438 –> 01:50:45,084
own thing to now I’m in a different hierarchy doing something else.

1777
01:50:45,282 –> 01:50:48,860
I’m at the bottom of a dominance hierarchy yet again right now on another project.

1778
01:50:49,010 –> 01:50:53,356
And so one

1779
01:50:53,378 –> 01:50:57,024
of the things that I’ve become better at

1780
01:50:57,062 –> 01:51:00,812
in the course of my career is recognizing where those hierarchical

1781
01:51:00,876 –> 01:51:04,896
structures are, really figuring out how the pyramid is working fairly quickly

1782
01:51:05,078 –> 01:51:08,470
and making a decision fairly quickly

1783
01:51:10,040 –> 01:51:13,252
of, yes, I want to be in, or no, I don’t. And the

1784
01:51:13,306 –> 01:51:16,420
faster that I can make that decision intuitively,

1785
01:51:17,000 –> 01:51:20,596
even before I go and interview for a position

1786
01:51:20,698 –> 01:51:24,212
or even before I go and have a meeting, or even before I go right.

1787
01:51:24,266 –> 01:51:28,296
And trust me, there’s times when I look at a structure and I go and

1788
01:51:28,318 –> 01:51:31,336
I’ve gotten this feedback from people, well, you don’t really know everything that’s in the

1789
01:51:31,358 –> 01:51:35,244
structure. No, I don’t. But I also don’t know everything that goes on

1790
01:51:35,282 –> 01:51:38,510
in a prison. I don’t want to go there.

1791
01:51:39,760 –> 01:51:43,336
I don’t want to know. I don’t feel compelled

1792
01:51:43,368 –> 01:51:46,188
to have to know everything that goes on inside of a structure to know that

1793
01:51:46,194 –> 01:51:49,424
I don’t want to be part of it. And if I have multiple choices for

1794
01:51:49,462 –> 01:51:53,490
multiple hierarchies that I could be engaged in, why would I pick one

1795
01:51:55,060 –> 01:51:58,704
that doesn’t work for me, right? Like you talked about, the multimillionaire

1796
01:51:58,752 –> 01:52:00,500
who’s now the greeter at Walmart.

1797
01:52:01,960 –> 01:52:04,980
I have zero interest in being a greeter at Walmart.

1798
01:52:06,120 –> 01:52:10,080
Now, I’m not saying that that’s not something that if

1799
01:52:10,170 –> 01:52:13,176
circumstances or whatever and I had to take it, I wouldn’t take it.

1800
01:52:13,198 –> 01:52:15,530
Sure, okay. Who knows, right?

1801
01:52:17,820 –> 01:52:21,960
And if I had to use an old school word, my druthers,

1802
01:52:22,380 –> 01:52:26,008
I’m going to do the scary thing of picking

1803
01:52:26,184 –> 01:52:30,056
a hierarchy that matches closer my personality,

1804
01:52:30,168 –> 01:52:33,180
and Walmart doesn’t match my personality,

1805
01:52:35,760 –> 01:52:38,530
then it’s a purely utilitarian choice at that point,

1806
01:52:40,020 –> 01:52:43,628
and that’s scary in its own kind of way. But weirdly enough, it’s less scary

1807
01:52:43,724 –> 01:52:48,556
than just sort of being transparent and picking the hierarchy intentionally

1808
01:52:48,588 –> 01:52:50,630
with your eyes wide open. All right,

1809
01:52:51,560 –> 01:52:54,596
well, how do we stay on the path then? Let’s wrap this sucker up.

1810
01:52:54,618 –> 01:52:57,910
Let’s bring this sucker home. How do we stay on the path, Tom?

1811
01:52:58,520 –> 01:53:01,690
Well, I think the simplest answer to this

1812
01:53:03,020 –> 01:53:05,690
sometimes I think I oversimplify things,

1813
01:53:06,540 –> 01:53:09,912
but I think realistically, if you find the path that’s right

1814
01:53:09,966 –> 01:53:13,984
for you, this question isn’t even a question. It just becomes second nature,

1815
01:53:14,052 –> 01:53:17,884
right? If the path is right, there’s no effort that you

1816
01:53:17,922 –> 01:53:21,288
have to use or leverage to stay, quote,

1817
01:53:21,304 –> 01:53:25,480
unquote, stay on the path. If you find yourself having to overwork

1818
01:53:25,640 –> 01:53:29,848
to really drive, to stay on that same path,

1819
01:53:30,024 –> 01:53:33,104
maybe you need to take a closer look at the path. Maybe you need to

1820
01:53:33,142 –> 01:53:36,144
actually look and say, am I really on the right path, or am I just

1821
01:53:36,182 –> 01:53:39,524
doing am I going through the motions because it’s expected of me?

1822
01:53:39,562 –> 01:53:43,696
Am I going through the motions because it’s financially advantageous,

1823
01:53:43,728 –> 01:53:48,070
but not necessarily what I truly want? There’s validity behind

1824
01:53:50,680 –> 01:53:54,536
you’ve all heard the statement, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a

1825
01:53:54,558 –> 01:53:58,424
day in your life. That is really true. I love sales and marketing. I never

1826
01:53:58,462 –> 01:54:01,130
think of anything that I do as real work.

1827
01:54:01,740 –> 01:54:05,276
Believe me. I flipped burgers as a kid. You know what I mean?

1828
01:54:05,458 –> 01:54:07,550
That was work. That was real work.

1829
01:54:10,160 –> 01:54:13,404
Tom smelled like grease from the fryer back

1830
01:54:13,442 –> 01:54:17,344
in the day. Terrible. I should say.

1831
01:54:17,462 –> 01:54:21,740
I spun pizzas. I actually work for pizza places,

1832
01:54:21,820 –> 01:54:24,800
but same rule, right? Same thing, right? Yeah.

1833
01:54:24,950 –> 01:54:28,752
I wasn’t so in love with it that it was so easy to do.

1834
01:54:28,886 –> 01:54:32,596
I found the place where I feel like I fit. And for

1835
01:54:32,618 –> 01:54:35,908
me to stay on the path is not difficult. There’s not a

1836
01:54:35,914 –> 01:54:39,684
lot of effort that I have to put into. Now, I just

1837
01:54:39,722 –> 01:54:43,648
want to be clear here. Do not mistake that statement for me thinking that I

1838
01:54:43,674 –> 01:54:47,224
don’t have anything that’s difficult to do. I have lots of

1839
01:54:47,262 –> 01:54:51,016
tasks that are hard and that I don’t always enjoy. There are certain parts and

1840
01:54:51,038 –> 01:54:54,396
components that I have to convince myself to get up in the morning for and

1841
01:54:54,418 –> 01:54:57,980
blah, blah, blah. There’s certain part, but overall,

1842
01:54:58,800 –> 01:55:02,232
the huge, overall sprawling

1843
01:55:02,296 –> 01:55:05,800
piece of this landscape, I find it fascinating

1844
01:55:05,880 –> 01:55:09,424
and fun and intriguing, and I love it. I love

1845
01:55:09,462 –> 01:55:12,816
being elbow deep into this stuff. I love solving problems that are

1846
01:55:12,838 –> 01:55:17,170
based on sales and marketing. I love it. Even in my personal life,

1847
01:55:19,220 –> 01:55:23,332
we were joking around, being on the 50 under 50 or whatever. I turned 49

1848
01:55:23,386 –> 01:55:26,708
this month. Okay. I now find myself in a

1849
01:55:26,714 –> 01:55:29,988
position in my personal life that I don’t feel like I have to put a

1850
01:55:29,994 –> 01:55:33,400
lot of effort into being happy. I really don’t.

1851
01:55:33,740 –> 01:55:37,144
I love being where I am in my personal life.

1852
01:55:37,342 –> 01:55:40,424
I finally feel like I’m on that path that doesn’t take

1853
01:55:40,462 –> 01:55:42,170
a lot of effort to stay on.

1854
01:55:44,780 –> 01:55:48,516
And I remember and it’s

1855
01:55:48,548 –> 01:55:51,816
so funny, too, because I always tell people, if it wasn’t for hindsight,

1856
01:55:51,848 –> 01:55:55,710
I’d be blind. Right? Because hindsight is always 2020.

1857
01:55:56,080 –> 01:55:59,712
That’s actually not true. You can look at your past and

1858
01:55:59,766 –> 01:56:02,332
still look at it through fogged glasses,

1859
01:56:02,396 –> 01:56:06,096
thinking that I would have, shoulda, could have had whatever.

1860
01:56:06,198 –> 01:56:09,344
Right. And that’s not necessarily the case if you’re looking through it

1861
01:56:09,382 –> 01:56:13,204
with clear lenses saying, I made that decision because of X and

1862
01:56:13,242 –> 01:56:16,036
I did it, and it ended up this way, and I’m now on the right

1863
01:56:16,058 –> 01:56:19,120
path, so I’m okay. I’m okay with that decision.

1864
01:56:19,200 –> 01:56:22,992
Right. I just

1865
01:56:23,066 –> 01:56:26,712
find that staying on the path should not be as much work

1866
01:56:26,766 –> 01:56:30,056
as people think it is. I just don’t think it. I think if

1867
01:56:30,078 –> 01:56:33,420
you’re putting in time and effort and hammering yourself

1868
01:56:33,490 –> 01:56:36,892
every day and constantly trying to that you might be on the wrong

1869
01:56:36,946 –> 01:56:40,424
path. You might want to do some soul searching

1870
01:56:40,472 –> 01:56:41,070
here.

1871
01:56:44,960 –> 01:56:47,410
That is an excellent point. Yes.

1872
01:56:48,180 –> 01:56:51,728
I would add to it, in order to determine if you’re on

1873
01:56:51,734 –> 01:56:55,760
the right path or not, you want to probably send yourself a personal letter.

1874
01:56:56,500 –> 01:56:59,220
Like that old song Back in the day, take a Letter, Maria.

1875
01:56:59,800 –> 01:57:02,996
Right. Except that one he was addressing to

1876
01:57:03,018 –> 01:57:06,500
his wife about not coming back home. So maybe the lyrics don’t really

1877
01:57:06,570 –> 01:57:09,776
apply necessarily for leaders, but take time

1878
01:57:09,818 –> 01:57:13,796
to write down what you’re thinking about the path

1879
01:57:13,828 –> 01:57:17,752
you’re on. Get real close

1880
01:57:17,806 –> 01:57:20,868
to your core values of politeness and decorum.

1881
01:57:20,964 –> 01:57:24,444
Heck, sometimes it starts with being polite, even to yourself,

1882
01:57:24,642 –> 01:57:27,896
treating yourself as if you are a person who can be who’s

1883
01:57:27,928 –> 01:57:32,636
worthwhile to be polite, to understand

1884
01:57:32,738 –> 01:57:35,720
that all of your experiences bring something to the table.

1885
01:57:35,880 –> 01:57:39,484
Whether you’re 49 or 39 or 29, your experiences

1886
01:57:39,532 –> 01:57:42,556
bring something to the table. They do have some value. They do have some merit.

1887
01:57:42,588 –> 01:57:46,530
They have some weight. Don’t dismiss that. But also, don’t overweigh it.

1888
01:57:48,100 –> 01:57:51,388
I’ve said that on this podcast with you, Hasan. You should

1889
01:57:51,414 –> 01:57:55,172
be able to learn from anybody. It doesn’t matter what age

1890
01:57:55,226 –> 01:57:59,028
they are. They’ve got something to teach you. They really do. And you should be

1891
01:57:59,034 –> 01:58:02,472
able to learn from yourself and your experiences, no matter

1892
01:58:02,526 –> 01:58:06,680
what age you’re bringing those experiences from.

1893
01:58:06,830 –> 01:58:10,244
And then, of course, understand that you live in a world of systems.

1894
01:58:10,292 –> 01:58:14,108
I live in a world of systems. There’s absolutely zero

1895
01:58:14,194 –> 01:58:18,590
way out of it. So choose,

1896
01:58:20,720 –> 01:58:24,456
as the knight said in Indiana, jane down there with the Holy Grail

1897
01:58:24,488 –> 01:58:27,020
Cup. Choose wisely.

1898
01:58:29,760 –> 01:58:33,480
And with that, I’d like to thank Tom Libby

1899
01:58:33,560 –> 01:58:37,264
for joining us today on the Leadership Lessons or the Great Books podcast.

1900
01:58:37,432 –> 01:58:40,804
You’re welcome, my son. And this is

1901
01:58:40,842 –> 01:58:42,950
us signing off.