Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the

Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode number

87 in regular numbering

with our guest cohost today, The last time he

will be guest cohosting, at least for this season. He'll be back next

season. Don't worry, folks. We're not booting him off the show completely.

Actually, we're letting him come in more, actually, weirdly enough. Tom

Lavey. How are you doing, Tom? I'm doing fantastic. How

are you doing, Hassan? Well, you know, we're we're rounding the corner towards the end

of the year. It's the holidays. So, just like,

Well, just like in most cases, when you eat too much and the

the belt gets loosened, we're loosening the belt of,

Discipline around here, and things are falling apart left and right. So it's great.

It's good times. Love it. That that's that's that's awesome. I

love lack of discipline. Not.

Our core demographic is gonna love that. Alright. So

so, we are going to cover a short

story today. It's not really a book. It's a short story today,

that was originally published near the beginning of Willa

Cather's writing career in, in 18/96.

And she published this, short story under the pseudonym Elizabeth

l Seymour. And you can actually find this,

this book, if you go and Google

the the Cather writings at the,

the University of Nebraska Lincoln, you can actually find this book

here or the short story here that we're gonna cover today. And it was

published at Harper's Weekly and a few other places, and then it was republished a

few times. It didn't get a whole lot of popularity during the

course of her lifetime, but it does fit the

Christmas theme or the which are holiday theme, although for us here,

we say Christmas. So the Christmas theme that we're doing at the end of the

year here, and it kind of really acts as

a jumping off point, for our exploration

of the actual meaning of the Christmas holiday and, of

course, how it's, juxtaposed at the end of the year,

next to, next to New Year's. So So we're going to focus

our conversation today around themes of forgiveness,

desire, and the inevitable tension between the

unrealized dreams of prodigal children and the siren call of

home. And so today, we will be talking about,

Willa Cather's short story A Burglar's Christmas.

Now the version that I have and by the way, there's many open source versions

floating around. The version that I have,

was, published in to support the work of 3

p's, a charity registered in England and Wales. That's one of the

versions that I have today, but there's many different open source versions floating around.

I recommend you get Yourself, a copy of this. And it's a real easy read.

It's only 30 pages when published. And the link that I sent to

Tom from the University of Nebraska Lincoln, I think it was only, like, what? Like,

it was like a 10 minute read. It was easy. Right? Yeah. About that. That's

in 15 minutes. Yeah. It's not that hard. So from

A Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cather, we're gonna pick up

literally right at the beginning. 2 very shabby

looking young men stood at the corner of Prairie Avenue and 80th

Street looking despondently at the carriages that whirled by. It was

Christmas Eve, and the streets were full of vehicles, florists, wagons,

groceries, carts, and carriages. The streets were in that half liquid, half congealed

condition, peculiar to the streets of Chicago at that of the year. The swift

wheels that spun by sometimes through the slush of mud and snow over the 2

young men who were talking on the corner. Well, remarked the elder

of the 2. I guess we are at our rope's end sure enough. How do

you feel? Pretty shaky. The wind's sharp tonight. If I had

Anything to eat. If I had had anything to eat, I might not mind it

so much. There's simply no show. I'm sick of the whole business.

Looks like there's nothing for it but the lake. Oh, nonsense. I thought

you had more grit. Got anything left you could hock? Nothing

but my beard. I am afraid they wouldn't Find it worth a pawn

ticket, said the young man ruefully rubbing a week's growth of stubble

on his face. Got any folks anywhere? Now is your time to strike

them if you have them. Never mind if I have. They're out of the

question. Well, you'll be out of it before many hours if you

don't make a move of some sort. A man's gotta eat. See here, I

am going down to Longtime Saloon. I used to play the banjo in there with

a couple of coons, and I'll bone him for some of his free lunch stuff.

You better come along. Perhaps they'll fill an order for 2. How far

down is it? Well, it's clear downtown. Of

course, way down on Michigan Avenue. Thanks. I guess I'll

loaf around here. I don't feel equal to the walk and the cars while the

cars are crowded. His features drew themselves to what might

have been a smile under happier circumstances. No.

You never did like streetcars. You're too aristocratic. See here,

Crawford. I don't like leaving you here. You ain't good company for yourself tonight.

Crawford? Oh, yes. That's the name. There have been so many

I forgot them. Have you got a real name anyway?

Oh, yes. But it's one of the ones I've forgotten. Don't you worry about me.

You, go along, get your free lunch. I think I had a row In

Longton's place once, I better not show myself there again.

As he spoke, the young man nodded and turned slowly up the avenue.

He was miserable enough to want to be quite alone. Even the crowd that

jostled by him annoyed him. He wanted to think about

himself. He had avoided this final reckoning with himself for a year

now. He had laughed it off and drunk it off. But now,

when all those artificial devices which are employed to turn our Thoughts into

other channels and shield us from ourselves had failed him.

It must come. Hunger is a

powerful incentive to introspection.

18/96 in Chicago hanging out with the

slush. Turns out that 18/96 in Chicago is just as bad as

2023 in Chicago.

So introspection always Comes at the end of

the year. And what we do on this podcast is we talk

about books and short stories. We try to Glean some ideas,

thoughts, some something that leaders can use from,

from these works. And, in thinking

about the 3 holidays that occur at the end of the year,

Pache, Tom Levy, and I'm going to I'm gonna

say this. Thanksgiving does occur at the end of the year in the

rotation, then, then we have Christmas, then we have New Year's. I

know it is football day for Tom, not Thanksgiving Day. Wanna be

sensitive to that. But it does come there. Right?

And, there are principles, right, that are wrapped around that

rotation. Right? And it's interesting because, I've started reading a book called,

The 4th Turning, in preparation for,

some topics that we're going to cover next year, by William

Howe and Neil Strauss written back in 1997, and they

talk about in that book or they write about in that book how,

we as modern people, and it is a critique of modernity.

We have abandoned the idea of cyclical time.

We're we're we're very much linearly focused in our perception

of time because, well, we're linear linearly focused

in our perception of progress, and cycles

kind of perturb us a little bit.

Hathor, however, came from a different time. Right? And,

Yes. She, had grown up in Nebraska, and she's grown up in the

Midwest. And so she came from a place where cycles

really did matter, cycles of time, cycles of

growth. When you lived on the great plains in the

late, 18 nineties and the early 20th

century, and you were a farmer on the Great Plains or a

rancher on the Great Plains. You were going to be

involved in cycles, and you were going

to feel the rhythm of that and you were going to transpose that to human

relationships. And that's Something that we see with these 3 holidays placed

at the end of the year, but it's also something that we see in The

Burglar's Christmas with themes of gratitude, forgiveness, reconciliation,

and ultimately renewal.

In our more linear age, you know, the postmodern

age we now live in, whether business or personal. We tend to be driven by

the idea that we could have done more or accomplished more or been more. We

could have progressed linearly more during the

year. This, of course, creates tensions because now

you're caught up in an endless, shall I say, cycle

of never having done enough. And this is where we get

the penultimate expression of our

insanity with not being able to reconcile linearity

with cyclical nature of time,

with the New Year's resolution. You know, that thing where all of you

show up in the gym where I'm at, and I've been there the last 365

days 4:30 in the morning. Every morning, the last 365

days, and then all of you are on the machines.

And on the weight rack and squatting

and deadlifting. But then guess what? I take

heart because you're all gone by February. Maybe March at the

latest, but the vast majority of you are gone.

And and the reason why is because of this

cyclical nature of time, the cyclical

nature of introspection.

And don't worry, you'll be back in the same cycle next year hitting

yourself on the head, wondering or someplace else.

Wondering how can you break out of this.

We are driven by an overwhelming ambition to self improve

in America. Whether that's right or wrong, we

just are. And you get a touch of the beginning

of this in The Burglar's Christmas. Catherine was a

writer who kind of sat on that, and William

Faulkner was another one who kinda set on that boundary between the old

world, the the premodern world, and the modern world that was coming

up, a modern world defined by writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald

and Dos Passos, who we have covered on this podcast as well.

But then there was the old world that had come before defined by writers like

Hawthorne and Melville and Poe, where the cyclical

nature of experience was running dead

set into the linear nature of progress, and

introspection was something that was going to have to happen there

at that transition. So I'd like to talk a little bit about

introspection today with Tom along with some other things, including

Jingle All the Way. We're gonna talk about getting beat down at Christmas.

And, my personal favorite topic this time of the year, which I wish

this was an actual holiday that would make it into the rotation,

from Seinfeld's episode in 1997, The Strike,

Festivus for the Rest of Us.

Tom. With that rousing introduction and my flashing

lights behind me, which none of you can see on the audio version of this.

On the video version, you'll be able to see the flashing lights that I wrapped

immediately around my tree.

What do you think of introspection at the end of the year, and how do

we measure success or failure? What do you think of how of what all of

how all that happens at the holidays season, you know, the

holiday time. Because it is it is this weird cyclical thing that

happens at the end of all this linearity.

Well, I you know, it's funny that you say that,

like, from a from a personal standpoint because

it's not just Persons that do this like, companies do

this too. Right? Like Oh, yeah. Companies will they'll set something in

motion. They'll they'll have these end of year End of year meetings where

they gauge, like, their success of the year or

whatever, and then they'll design goals for the following year, and then they'll set them

in motion, And then they'll meet about it next next December

and and and they'll talk about whether it's I so I

I I it's not just an interpersonal thing. I think I think to your point,

we we've we've gotten to we've gotten this this way about,

the way we think about, about these things. And

before I go too deep into it, I'll give you a a a

I guess my feeling on this. I'm not sure if it's a philosophy or Or

a feeling, but my my son my son was talking about

getting back into shape and working out and stuff like that, right? This is like

a Tuesday or somethings like that in the middle of the week. It's like he's

him and I were just talking, and he goes, you know,

you know what? I I think, things are starting working out, so, you know,

Sunday, I'm gonna I'm gonna start, and I go, hey. Time out.

Why are you waiting till Sunday? Because I wanna start as a fresh week. I

wanna get a fresh I go, What difference why can't you start

tomorrow? Hell, why can't you start today? If it's something

that you wanna do, it's something you wanna change, it's something you wanna influence and

make Better in your life. Why are you waiting until Sunday?

And if that's the case, then why not wait until the 1st day of the

month? Like, what what just for, like, What? Let's just turn the page on the

calendar and start fresh start fresh. Start anew. Start

like, I don't understand the philosophy of waiting until

Sunday To do something you think is going to make yourself better,

why are you waiting? Right? So go back to this, and I'm

going, Why are we waiting until the end of the year to do

this? From any of these perspectives, even from the corporate

perspective, why are we not looking at this on a

Quarterly basis, monthly basis, weekly basis, daily basis.

We should be looking at ways to improve ourselves minute by minute, never

mind at the end of the year. Like, this to me was it's baffling. The

whole thought process behind this to me is baffling. And why are

we only thankful at the end of the year? Why are we why are we

I know I tell my significant other every

single day that I'm thankful for her to be in my life. Mhmm. Every

day. Not not a single day goes by. And and I ask her, I I

I I have asked her in the past, does it bother you? Should I not

do that? Like, I I know because people say that, You know, showing gratitude

and and that stuff is great, but, you know, getting, like,

hounding over day over day, like, sometimes it could just you know, it sound it

starts to sound Disingenuous. Mhmm. And I asked her, and

she went, absolutely not. We've been doing this long enough that if you stopped,

I would think something was wrong. I said,

Okay. So so so for her, it's not an

annual or it's a daily affirmation for her for me to thank her and be

thankful that she's in my life. Right? Like So I I guess there's levels here,

and you can peel back onions left and right. And, you know, from a personal

perspective, it should be it should be a lot more frequent. Maybe the

corporate thing Daily is probably not

feasible. Right? Like, I get that. I get that. But the it should still be

there's there should Still be more in tune to it than

it's like like it's like it's like driving down the road, right, and

and and realizing that you're only a mile from home and and you should've stopped

at the supermarket, and you're like, oh, crap. Like, now is not the

time to think of that. Right? Like Right. So so I'm thinking, like, yeah, like

like, The end of the year is not the is not the

time it's not the only time to be thinking of that. You should be thinking

of this frequently throughout the course of the year. But why we do it?

Why we wait until the end of the year? That is a phenomenon that I've

never understood. I've no one's ever given me a a good enough

reason For me to think that this is, like, oh, it's just the way

to do it. This makes sense. Everybody should be thinking of it this way. It

doesn't no. It doesn't make sense to me. Well, I think

it's because I think it has something to do with

that, the way in which we perceive

progress, and cycles. I do. I I

genuinely think that there's something there in Strauss and,

and Hal's idea in the 4th turning. I think there's something

there Yeah. Where And and I think it's

become worse as we've gone further and further

away from the land such as it

were. Right? As as human beings, particularly us in

America, as we've conquered more of nature and we've been able

to Free ourselves. At least

we think we have. Free ourselves from the

constraints of nature and the constraints of time itself

where we are we we get you you see this in people. They get so

frustrated. People do. Okay. So here's the thing, and I I've

revealed this on the podcast before. I'll say it again. I do not do

time management training. I don't. I don't I don't I

don't see the point of it. I don't,

believe that it's something that is valuable. If you wanna get a time

management training from me and and you wanna professionally,

you know, hire me to do that, I will

refuse. I will turn you down very politely, and then I will send you directly

to our YouTube channel where there is an hour and a half long time

management presentation, which has 4 views because no one wants to sit

there and watch that for that long, and I cover everything that there is needs

to be said about time management. And I have not done a time management training

since I shot that in 2017.

That's in the last word for me on time management

because The idea that we can manage time in

a corporate setting is the ultimate extension

of we are masters over nature. We're masters over time.

And to me, it's hubris. When in reality, what we should be

managing to the point about you made about your son by the way, he'll

probably be in the gym next to me on the deadlift machine in January improving

himself. No. No. No. No. So I I have a

literally complete gym in my basement. And when I say complete, I mean, like,

literally. If you You would think if I painted the walls, you were in, like,

a Planet Fitness. Oh, okay. Alright. Okay. So he'll be in your gym.

Alright. Yeah. I I I actually go one step further because I actually have Heavy

bags in there and, like, all kinds of stuff. Oh, wow. Like, Planet Fitness doesn't

have I need to go to Tom's Gym. What am I doing? Why am I

going to the Y? Why are you paying for this? But,

like, it's it's the ultimate extension

of of that idea of self improvement is that we're just gonna

manage our time. And so you're right. Like, to your point about about him, like,

he should be managing his priorities. He's clearly not putting his health as

number 1, whatever or whatever it is that he's doing with, you

know, working out for. And if he did, he would go do

that. Whatever you put in that number 1 slot is what's important to you.

And I think when not I think, I know. When I say that have said

that in the past to audiences, everybody shrinks

because it's too close to the truth of the solution. So does it

work? The solution to the problem. That's like my my one of my

favorite I my My, father-in-law, who's

since passed, was very influential to me. I loved this man

more I mean, loved him probably more than my own biological family.

Right? Wow. Okay. Yep. He was a mentor to me, a a

spiritual adviser, like, the whole 9 yards. Right? Yeah. But I

used to drive him Baddie. When I used to say I'm like, I

don't understand this philosophy. You know that you know, you you hear this that term,

why put off to to why put off till tomorrow, what you can get done

today? Right. And he's I I I've never bought into that. My philosophy is the

exact opposite. Why do today what you Can't put off till

tomorrow. And it used to drive him batty, and I'm like, no, you don't understand.

That means that what I'm doing today is the most

important thing to me. If it's not important, it can wait until

tomorrow. Okay. Like But having the courage to admit that is something that

people don't have. Exactly. Yes. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. Because it used

to drive him nuts. Right. See,

I'd be like, well, at least you have the courage to admit it, and I

can move on the rest of my for the rest of my life. And this

is the thing with introspection, like so introspection is the act of looking backwards. It's

time's arrow that looks backwards, and

We talk a little bit about this before we maybe turn the corner or something

else, but regret. Right? Like, we don't talk about

regret in our culture well either. I think of the movie,

because you and I are both cinematic people, you probably saw this movie. Remember Magnolia

And all the scenes with Jason Robards and,

well, not all of them, but The whole subplot with Jason Robards and Tom

Cruise who was the, like, the, like, remember remember Neil

Strauss in the game? Remember that? That whole thing in the 19 nineties, the

pickup artist guy. Yeah. Yeah. He was that pickup artist guy. And it

turned out, of course, like it usually does with folks like that, that's why

this movie worked, that he had been damaged by a lack

of a relationship with his father, and he just wanted Basically, he

wanted his father to die so that he could be released from

that that that,

that, anchor that was tying him down. And one of the

lines in the film, and I'm not gonna repeat all of it because there's

some stuff in there that I'm not gonna not gonna so words in there that

I'm not gonna say, some naughty words I'm not gonna say. But, basically, Robards,

as he's dying from cancer, tells him that, you know, the

thing that kills us is not the things that we did, it's

the regret. Yeah. And I think that that

drives a lot of introspection. Introspection is not about it's not

a forward it's not a forward shooting arrow. It's not, Hey.

We're gonna do this tomorrow. It's more like, I didn't do that yesterday, and now

I'm gonna flagellate myself. And I also think there's a religious element to that.

We don't use Christian terminology because we're post Christian now. We're better than that.

Okay. So let's not use Christian terminology. Let's throw all that out, but we

keep the guilt. We we keep that. Yeah.

Yeah. We're gonna throw out all the religious terminology and the religious structure around it,

the theology around it that helped us navigate the guilt or at least put it

in its right spot. Gonna toss all of that, but we're gonna keep the guilt.

Yeah. Right. So don't eat that chocolate cake at, like,

at, at Christmas. Oh, no. I'm

letting go of that guilt. It's it's it's

the interpersonal guilt that I'm gonna hold on to. I'm gonna eat whatever I

wanna eat. I'm just letting you know.

Listen. When you grow up when you grow up dirt, poor,

Indeed. I I tell my kids all the time. I used to, like,

I used to have these I used to make I used to take 2 pieces

of bread Mhmm. And put the most random stuff in the middle of it that,

like Oh, yeah. Honestly, I would mayonnaise. I would just have 2 pieces of bread

with mayonnaise in the middle. I would call it Wish Sandwiches because I wish there

was meat in it. Right? Like That's good to know. That's actually good to

know. So now when I stack the cold cuts up Six

inches high, and my kids are like, dad, that's gluttonous. I'm like, no. It isn't

because you don't know what it's like to have a wish sandwich.

Anyway, I'm just saying I'm not retrospecting what I eat. I'm eating whatever I'm

no. Oh, yeah. Well, my children monitor what goes into my mouth too. I've never

had so many people in my life ever monitor what goes out of my goes

out of my in my mouth, like, ever. It's been stunning. I tell him, like,

I'm surprised I was able to survive before you people. Like, how did I get

here? How did I get here? Anyway Anyway No. But

it is true. Like, I think I think when it comes to the regret it's

the interpersonal relationships that we that we view like that. Right? We don't think with

him and his father. In this particular story,

that same conversation's gonna be later on in this story, which I thought was

interesting. But, Yeah. Why does it always come back to our

fathers? I don't know. Well well

well, That's part of the religious superstructure

that we just dumped. We just dumped out the back. We don't even we don't

even pay attention to that anymore. Right? So I'm not even gonna,

I'm not even gonna visit that for the time being. If you wanna hear more

of my thoughts on the patriarchy, there's absolutely no episodes

we're SOL. Yeah. Well, no. We covered we covered

a little we touched a little bit on it in our we're I talked about

Virginia Woolf a little bit because Virginia Woolf, very

strong feminist writer, wrote in that sort of mode. And, of

course, the episode slouching towards Beth slouching towards

Bethlehem where we talked about Joan Didion's great, great

writing, where she wrote an entire essay about John Wayne when she

was, like, 10 and talked about how she could, sense

his His masculinity coming off the screen,

so strong or his masculinity came off the screen so strongly that she could sense

it even as a 10 year old, but she didn't know where Where to put

that? Right? That's really the only 2 times that we've kind of covered the

patriarchal order of reality. Maybe

because I'm not looking to be in trouble, at least not at that level quite

just yet. But anyway, we'll save that for season 3. We'll wait till we get

to episode 187. 7. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Then then I'm

uncancelable at that point. Right. Actually, I'm never

really worried about that. So anyway,

Okay. One other thought. So forgiveness, right? So,

okay. So you've got introspection, you've got regret, right?

But That, again, part of that structure

that we've thrown out, which is explored in this story, particularly from

the mother's perspective, is this idea of forgiveness and reconciliation.

What and this is all very interesting to me because in grad school,

I studied conflict resolution and reconciliation.

Almost nobody ever asks me to do reconciliation work.

Matter of fact, never. I never asked to do reconciliation work.

And I've done all the study and written all the papers and done all

the research, and nobody cares.

And that's not an that's not a that's not a hyperbolic statement. Like, there's no

interest in it whatsoever. Well, I think

partly, there's I think there's some weird I don't know.

Maybe we don't get into it on this particular episode or whatnot. I I think

we could probably do a whole episode on just that because there's

like, forgiveness is a is a construct, right? Like, it's Right. Like,

We're using a word to symbolize a

feeling, but we don't usually allow

our actions

To to fortify those feelings or to showcase those feelings, right? Like

Right. You you get into a, You know, you get into something with somebody,

a good friend or a family member or whatever, and somebody says, oh, they

say I forgive you. Right. And then you just go about your,

like, so the person being forgiven just kinda goes about their business

normally, where the person that's doing the forgiving Doesn't

always actually release that emotional

control of that feeling, right? Like it's Right. So you're saying the

words I forgive you, but your actions don't always support your

words, so but to the person who's being forgiven, they act like it

is. They just don't even care anymore. They're like, great. I was forgiven. I'm moving

on. It is it it it it creates a very

weird dynamic, which is, I think, to what you're talking about, especially from a corporate

perspective Or, like, this this outside

reconciliation, nobody really is asking you for or wanting it because nobody really

knows how to Really do it.

And they're they're thinking it's not a real thing. Like Right. Well and and

that's okay. That's fine. Forgive me, this is not a real thing. Right? It's a

construct. It's a construct. Right. And and see, this is this is this is part

of the Again,

when you when you

When you try to culturally I'll relate it I'll relate it back to this idea

of culturally unmooring ourselves from nature. When you

unmoor yourself from nature, Now you sort of, or

unbind yourself, not on more unbind yourself from nature

as a, as a society, particularly our postmodern society in

Japan is probably worse than we are, on this

because. Like, give me a break. Like You can live

in an entire apartment in Japan and never see another human being for literally

decades. That's insane. Right?

This is why one of my favorite one of my favorite blogs at the end

of, like, his newsletters or the end of their newsletters, they say, go out and

touch grass. Right? Go out and get close to go on, get close to

nature. And I think it's it's why I keep this plant.

It's behind me, you know, in my office. Like, you gotta

There's things that are outside of the purview

of pure mechanistic

evolutionary response.

There's there's things that are outside of that, and forgiveness and reconciliation

is one of those things. And by the way, in a corporate structure, people are

running around asking for forgiveness all the time. Let's not be let's let's be clear

about this. If I if I put together a

marketing campaign for a beer and it doesn't work, The most

tone deaf thing I could do is be like, well, I guess that didn't work.

Everybody yells at you on Twitter, I'm sorry, x, then. Right?

Yeah. But if you wouldn't And then the corporate environments that and you get that

it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Right. So So

people are, they they completely look at it from a different angle.

It's it's not the interpersonal relationship Forgiveness is

totally different than corporate forgiveness. It's totally different. Well

well, and corporate forgiveness comes down to PR. It's a PR strategy. I mean, let's

be clear here. It's a PR strategy. Right? Like,

it's good PR. It's bad PR for me to show up and

be like or be like. And to say,

wow. It's a shame that didn't work out. Still gonna buy our product?

You know, with the what me worry grin from Alfred e Newman, that

got the cover of Mad Magazine back in the day. Right? It's a

better corporate strategy from a PR perspective

to come out and pretend to be whatever you're not

pretend. Put on the show, the forgiveness show.

And that's where you get the really well worded

actually, not even worded. You get the word salad memos that don't make any

sense, but everybody gets so lost to the world's salad that people

word salad that people just wander away, which is what the PR people are relying

on. People wander away and their attention goes to something else because the word salad

is too much. And you're right. Forgiveness the the the change in behavior

hasn't actually occurred, And so the behavior continues on.

Meanwhile, they were solid in something until they have culpable deniability from the

lawyers. So the lawyers and the PR people get together to to to to gin

up culpable deniability.

Exactly. And and I don't Deniability and interpersonal relate

like, where you have to Right.

Although, I do every once in a while, I find myself,

Saying to one of my significant others in my life, whether it be

the, you know, the wife, the kids, whatever, going, listen, I have plausible deniability

here. Plausible deniability and

culpable deniability are 2 different things. 2 different things. I

know. 2 different things. Let's be clear on our language here. Alright. Well,

no, that's that's good. I think we've accomplished, we've solved absolutely nothing, but that's

okay. That's good because we have more of the story that we can

look at. So Back to Burglado's Christmas,

by, by Willa Cather. So we're gonna pick up a

few pages later where, the,

well, a decision is about to be made. So let's start with that.

Whichever way his mind now turned, there was one thought it could not

escape, and that was the idea of food, talking about a wish

sandwich. Yes. He caught the he caught the scent of,

of a cigar suddenly, and felt a sharp pain in the pit of his

abdomen and a sudden moisture in his mouth. His cold hands clenched

angrily, and for a moment, he felt that bitter hatred of wealth,

of ease of everything that is well fed and well housed that is

common to starving men. At any rate, he had

a right to eat. He had demanded great things for the world once, fame, wealth,

and admiration. Now it was simply bread, and he would have it.

He looked about him quickly and felt the blood begin to stir in his veins

and all this his straits. He never stolen anything. His tastes were

above it, but tonight, there would be no tomorrow. He was amused

at the way in which the idea excited him. He was it

possible there was yet 1 more experience that would distract him? One thing that

had power to Cite his jaded interest. Good. He

had failed at everything else. Now he would see what his chances would be as

a common thief. It would be amusing to watch the beautiful consistency

of his destiny work out itself even in that role. It would

be interesting to add another study to his gallery of futile attempts And then label

them all. The failure as a journalist, the failure as a lecturer, the failure as

a businessman, the failure as a thief, and so on, like the titles

under the pictures of the dance of death. It was time

the child, Roland, came to the dark tower.

A girl hastened by him with her Arms full of packages. She walked quickly

and nervously, keeping well within the shadow as if she

were not accustomed to carrying bundles and did not care to meet any of her

friends. As she crossed somebody's street, she made an effort to lift her skirt a

little. And as she did so, one of the packages slipped unnoticed,

from beneath her arm. He caught it up and overtook her. Excuse me, but I

think you dropped something. She started. Oh, yes. Thank you. I would have

rather I would rather have lost anything than that.

The young man turned angrily upon himself. The package was to contain something of value.

Why had he not kept it? Was this the sort of thief he would make?

Ground his teeth together. There's nothing more maddening than to have a more have

morally consented to crime and then lack the nerve force

to carry it out. It's a truly great observation, by the way.

Plus, that is a truly great observation from Willa Cather. That is

truly I underlined that twice, actually. A

carriage back to the book. A carriage drove up the house before which he

stood. Several richly dressed women alighted and went in. It was a new

house, and it must have been built since he was in Chicago last. The front

door was open, and he could see down the hallway and up the staircase.

The servant had left the door and gone with the guests. The 1st floor was

brilliantly lit, but the windows upstairs were dark. It looked very easy just to

slip upstairs To the darkened chambers where the jewels and trinkets of

the fashionable occupants were kept.

Still burning with impatience against himself, He entered quickly.

I'm gonna stop there at that spot because there's a there's a

reveal there. There's a turn there, which is

interesting. It's sort of, sort of the reveal of the MacGuffin or Anton

Chekhov's gun. A little bit there,

gets a fire in, in Willa

Cather's The Burglar's Chris or A Burglar's Christmas.

But something that's even more interesting there, and like I said, I I like that

idea that she had about morally consenting to a crime and not having

the nerve to go through with it. By the way, how many people

actually do that? I think quite a bit. That's why that that hit a,

nerve with me. But I was thinking about this book

in the context of Black Friday or

at least what Black Friday used to be. Now Tom and I are both of

the age where we remember people getting beat

down at Walmart over a plasma television.

Remember that. Tickle my elbow. Like Remember people remember people

were, like, throwing hands over, yeah, over a doll from Sesame Street?

Sesame Street toy. Like, I couldn't even believe it. And you were

like, what? But every every Black Friday,

I think for at least 20, 30 years, Things seem to escalate.

They seem to escalate and escalate and escalate and escalate. Again, and people, you

know, lining up, outside of Walmart

or Target or name your name brand here,

whatever the hot toy was, whether it was Pokemon, Tickle Me Elmo,

remember Tamagotchis? Remember that? Yeah.

Terrible things. I had those around my house, which, by the way,

you could get in copious amounts in July.

All of a sudden, Christmas Eve,

No Tamagotis to be had anywhere. Now

with the lower 48 states, maybe you could find 1 in China. She

would have to get there, and you couldn't get there. If you're making

$52,000 a year and you're Sinbad and that movie Jingle All the Way remember that

movie? I do. My wife hates that movie, but I watched it with the kids

the other day, and I just started I laughed. I laughed because I was, like,

this our children have to see the cultural artifact that was Black

Friday because they will never know that. Our

children will no one in their twenties who is listening to this podcast right

now will ever know What it was like

to have someone wanna throw hands with them over 52 inch plasma screen

television. Forget forget about the television.

Throw hands with them for saving a spot in line for your wife.

Like, your wife would say, I have to go to the bathroom. She'd go to

the bathroom and come back, and they'd be like, hey. Just don't cut my lawn.

Don't cut Like, well, she's with me, you idiot. Like With me.

Yeah. Like, she's not cunning. We're the same person.

Like, it it Oh, god. It's not even like but,

yes, that that they're not so not only are they gonna

not know it from that perspective, But Black Friday is not

the same thing anymore anyway in the sense that now it's it's

Black Week. Like, it's like The the sales start on

Monday of Thanksgiving. It, like like, it's crazy

that, like and now you got cyber Monday and small business Saturday

and, like, there's so many Tuesday. Yeah. Exactly. Like, in this,

like, there's so many versions of this this particular day now Mhmm. That

these guys are never gonna understand what it's Like to have a real

true Oh, no. Friday, where you get up at 2 in the

morning because you have to be in line by 4 AM because the store opens

at 6. And if you're not in in the like, it they're never

gonna understand that ever. They will they will never understand how

normally sane and otherwise law abiding adults

who paid their taxes

Have health insurance. Have health insurance, move snow

from their front porches, mowed their

lawns, amenable, hi, Bob. How you doing?

Getting in your car. My baby takes the morning train, works from 9 to

5. All of that Get suspended one day of

the year. All of a sudden, we're in, like, an apocalyptic

animal like Mad Max like Thunderdome like behavior.

I wonder if somebody went through that experience and that's how they came up with

the movie The Purge.

Well, that's the only reason the purge works. Right? Because, like, one

day. Remember that. One day. But you know what? You know what? The purge won't

work 10 years from now. No one's gonna care about that movie 10 years from

now because you'll be like, I don't know. Really? People that it'll

look old. It'll look it'll be weird. It'll be a weird thing.

No. I I so I did say I was gonna

revisit Festivus. So,

again, Festivus for the rest of us. So you know how

Festivus came about? I remember this because I was a gigantic fan of the Seinfeld

show. I've watched this I watch episodes of the show. Like, people watch episodes of

Cheers multiple times. I've watched episodes of Seinfeld multiple times.

My wife really likes Friends. That show was okay, I

guess. I was a Seinfeld guy,

so there you go. I'm aware of Friends.

I watched the other show. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I watched I watched every episode

of both of those shows, but Could not for the

life of you for a like, I I don't rewatch shows a lot.

Like, I don't I don't I'm not that person that will watch the same episode

of a show 3, 4, 5 I just don't do that. But I have watched

every episode of both of those shows, so there's that. I will

watch that. I will watch the episodes of Seinfeld. And weirdly

enough, over the last couple years, I found myself falling into a pit with Frasier,

the original Frasier show. That was a good show too. Yeah. Because Kelsey Grammer was

yeah. Watch all those too. Well, I appreciate the dad more. I appreciate John

Mahoney way more than I did when I was a younger man. Yeah.

He's like, oh my god. I wish my dad were around. Oh my god. That

would be spectacular. Drive him crazy

all the time. But so in Seinfeld, in the episode called The

Strike, where a number of different things happen. Kramer,

gets invited back to his old bagel job because now they're making $12 an

hour, and hilarity ensues from that.

But, but, George Costanza,

His father, Frank, comes up with a holiday

called Festivus. And he comes up with it

because and this ties into what we were saying about Black Friday.

And he's telling Jerry, in in in, in,

in his great, delivery and cadence.

Jerry Stiller was a national treasure, and I I wish that man

had never died. That guy was amazing. He's amazing. There's amazing

timing as a sitcom comedian. But, and Ben

Stiller, his son, hits and misses. You know? It's hits and

misses. As good. It's not nearly as good. And I'm sure he would say that

too. I'm sure he would agree. I'm not nearly as good as my father. Yeah.

But Jerry Stiller was always on as Frank Costanza.

Always. And he says, you know, he's telling Jerry,

I was standing in line for a doll and George goes, You think

yeah. And he says, you know, as I was raining

down blows upon this other man, I had revelation that there had to be

another way. And from there, ding,

Festivus was born. And then there's the poll,

the airing of grievances, The, Thespis isn't

over until you pin your father. This is a piece of

strength. All of these kinds of things.

Now the writers of Seinfeld created Festivus. 1 of the

writers did because his father came up with Festivus

because of sort of not wanting to be

bothered with the commercialization of the holidays.

Now the parts of Festivus that I like are the parts where you get to

gripe about everybody and tell them all the problems that you've had

with them during the course of the year, which, by the way, I think we

should Actually, do that. I I think that that's actually a brilliant innovation

that, that what I think minimize a lot of the introspection

Seth, because you just realize, oh, we just have continuing conflicts. It's fine. I got

a lot of problems with you people, and you're all gonna hear about it. We

have a we have a we have a sports talk radio station here in Boston

That does a a Festivus episode every year where they just air their

grievances about all this Boston sports teams. That's It's hilarious.

Hilarious. Oh, that's genius. That's and, of

course, it's in Boston. Of course. Of course, it is.

Plus it is. But my gosh, the the level of grievances that are going to

be around this year, good lord, for the Red Sox and the Patriots. It's gonna

be amazing this year. This is gonna be a banner year for you all.

But, anyway, I think we should have any area of grievances. I think that would

be very helpful and therapeutic.

It is one of those phenomenons that sort of

crawled out from underneath the gutter of Black Friday

When people realize just how ridiculous and wackadoo

it is to, like, yell at somebody whose wife left in line over a

Star Wars toy. Right? Like, people really had to look at that

behavior and just go, what are we doing? We're missing all of

it. And Dickens, Charles Dickens, because we talked about The Christmas

Carol last year when we re rereleasing that episode this

year, just in time for the holiday. But Dickens

even lamented the beginning of all that consumer culture and its

spiritual outcomes. And then, of course, Willa Cather took it the next, you

know, logical step, and sort of describing the the moral

avarice and greed is sort of at the core at the core of that and

that drives such behaviors with, with this young man who drives his

hunger. So I guess the question is,

like,

Well, how would you celebrate Festivus, Tom?

I guess that's the question.

I personally like the poll and the airing of grievances. I'm a big fan of

that. Let let me just say, just for the record here. Okay? The

the Patriots the Red Sox are not the only things I'd be complaining about.

Do people not realize that it was this calendar year that

the Bruins had a record season? They were, like, They were

crushing people and then lost in the 1st round of the playoffs? Come on. I

mean Introspection. See? It's backward looking. They're gonna bring it

forward. Well, I think I think I think

Festivists would be an interesting thing for us to incorporate, like, you know, on

a on a on a whole, you know, on a countrywide level. I think if

you think about it I mean, essentially essentially,

that that's like the day before New Year's Eve.

Right? Like Right. The day before New Year's Eve would be the perfect date. Yes.

You're you're gonna have new year's resolutions coming out the next day. So this

this day, we're gonna just spend the day complaining and and

and just Ripping people apart. Like, I want

this. Clearing the palate. It's a palate cleanser

Yeah. Before you go into the new year. I guess, you know, I I

so how what would I go sorry. The question

the question was, what Would I complain about or or How would well, you'll yeah.

How would you well, let's let's okay. Let's break it down a little bit more.

So You've got the you've got the the poll, so

you got the aluminum poll, which I think is brilliant. You've got the aerial grievances.

You've got, the feats of strength. Right?

And there's one other thing which I'm forgetting right now, but I'll remember it in

just a moment. So you've got 4 elements to Festivus. Right?

And, of course, George, on the episode decided to

give his gift or no. No. Decided to donate your

gift to the human fund, which I also think is

brilliant, money for people. And so he would just give you a card that

said, donation has been made of your gift in the name of

the Human Fund, which which I think is just genius.

I think I think that's absolutely brilliant. I mean, you know, what

the weird part is, I like, for my family, I don't think we

need a day like that. I mean, we complain all the time.

We're we're we're we're talking I just had this conversation

on Saturday about now I I I will not go into the

nitty gritty details, but let me just say That

as a as a like, we were talking about land acknowledgments to the native

community. Sure. And I was ripping them apart. I'm

like, this this is like This is the again, all

the Not asking for the yeah. All the

adjectives you wanna add in there, this ridiculous, stupid, crazy, what

I probably used every one of them that that signified that these were

a joke. Right? Like so I I I think I think the

idea behind Festivus happening on one day is kinda

silly. I I I think I think I think we spend all the year

Complaining and and and moaning and groaning about everything else, and then the the

holidays come and then we're thankful for the same things we were just complaining

about, like, 2 months ago, so

I don't know. I think it's Well well, do you think

that then then then let's move to the feats of strength. Do the feats of

strength stop criminal behavior? Is that basically what we were all arguing about

over Black Friday? We need feats of strength. Otherwise

Other otherwise, you know, well mannered tax

paying people don't have any way to get out the cortisol, like it just builds

up. Right? The adrenal responses, and you've got

this nice, you know, person who mows their lawn and waves at the

neighbor who just wants to I I mean, you mentioned the purge.

Okay. But I mean, like, you know, without going all the way to that whole

murder part. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I I

guess that makes a little bit of sense, but that's why I have a gym

in my basement. So you can't be pinned?

You Sun Campanio. Just get down and vent some

frustration on the heavy bag or on the speed bag or on the deadlift

or whatever it is. Like We had a deadlift for

Festivus. We had a deadlift for Festivus. We had that's that's a marketing

angle right there. Damn. Deadlift for Festivus. We're

solving problems here. No. I I just I I love it in

the context of, obviously, we're joking here. We're joking around. We're kidding around. But I

mean, like, I think that the And, again,

that line in here that I that I love, you know,

there's nothing more maddening than having a more having There is

nothing more maddening than to have morally consented to crime and then

lack the nerve and the force to carry it out.

I think you get the nerve and the force to carry it out when your

consequences are far enough away from you. Right? Yeah. And I think

what holidays of all kinds do, whether it's

Festivus, or, you know,

July 4th. Right? Or, I don't

know. Mother's Day. It brings all of that

to us. Right? You talk about, you know, not having gratitude for the entire year.

We're now gonna have gratitude at the end of this cycle. I think

that's true because, the nature

of celebration sharpens things for people in their, in

their heads. As human beings, we have so

much chaos in our own heads and in our own lives. Like, we need

that time set aside to just focus on one thing

even though 10 minutes afterward, we're gonna be jumping right back into the chaos.

Well, and there's something to be said, and again, I like you said, we're I

know we're we're joking and we're taking this to an extreme joke. Yeah. Yeah.

But but If you again, reel reel this back into a

corporate environment, and there's something to be said about

anonymous, like, Surveys and Mhmm. Being able to

being able to really, like, air out your

grievances toward your company. Because if leadership really wants the answer

and they really wanna solve problems, they're gonna listen to their people, but they're gonna

give them the freedom to say what they need to say And without repercussion

on it. Right? So that's the feet of strength. Essentially, to me, that's the

interpretation of feet of strength. Right? Like, you're gonna You're gonna give them the opportunity

to to air out whatever agreements they have, but you're not gonna penalize them

for pointing out the detriment or pointing out the fault

or the The failure of the company. You're gonna reward

them in a sense, if you think about it, because you're gonna fix it. So

Mhmm. You're gonna go fix The problem. And then hopefully, year over year

over year, those grievances become either, a, more manageable,

or, b, nonexistent. Right? Like, you're gonna Fix these things, and hopefully you build in

a mechanism where it's not just once a year that you're doing this. Like,

but but in staying with the theme that we're talking about, even if it

was once a year, it's Still going to be a benefit to the company if

you're if you're giving people that that

sense of, like and and to your point, a second ago, like, Okay.

I got this anonymous thing. I can write whatever I want. Right. So there's

no, like, there's no repercussion here. I can be as

evil, as mean, as, Or as

open and honest and sincere. Mhmm. Like like,

there's very distinctly differences, and you could literally say the same thing.

It's a matter of how it it's interpreted on the other side of it. Right?

Like, so, again, from a leadership perspective, you need to be open minded, openhearted,

and being able and willing to hear the hard the hard truths.

Well, in no society that I've

ever heard of Has ever survived a

mass level of anonymity? So, like, anonymous

feedback at, I'm gonna name a

giant corporation here. If I work at Ford, which I

think employs, like, 55,000 people, something like that. Okay.

Anonymous feedback at Ford, Ford can survive that, it's fine.

The culture of Ford will survive that.

Anonymous feedback at a societal level via we've been

experiencing this for the last 30 years. This is not anything new that I'm saying.

Right? We we recognize what it is. We just we just don't have the solution

to the problem. But anonymous feedback on the Internet from like

rollerbaby65@gmail.com, I

don't care. Like, who are you? I don't know. You could be a

bot. You could be an AI. You could be a,

an AI bot. You know, you could be some

somebody sitting in a room somewhere, somewhere overseas just

spamming, you know, spamming me or spamming the platform I happen to be

on. Who are you? And so at a global scale

or at a at a not even a global scale, I'll break it down even

further. At a nation state scale, No

society ever survives anonymity. It just doesn't, you know?

You you there's no way there's no way to build a relationship with

that. But there's some fundamental flaws between the 2, like, fundamental

very Separation. Differences between the 2. Right? Like, you're talking about a

company that The anonymity comes from a link that you provide

that is only gonna be attached to the people that you want

the information from. Right? You're you're asking them for the information. From a

societal perspective, you may or may not want that person's

feedback. I don't. I know. I don't want I don't want rollergirl65@yahoo.com's feedback. I

don't I don't want So I don't know. I don't care. So when you see

it, it's not it's not accepted the same way. It's not the same. So I

agree. I and I and I think you're right, but I think the purposes between

the two are Completely different. Or completely different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a bifurcation,

but I think the emotional response, which is what

holiday systems get too, is managing that emotional response in a cyclical

fashion. That emotional response is what we're not good at,

navigating, I don't think. I think the best I think the best exercise I

ever heard when it came to something like this, I was working for a company,

and they had this survey that they called, stop, start,

continue. Mhmm. So they wanted they they basically just said, open

response, give us 2 things that you want the company to stop doing

right now, like, 2 things that you That that that you're bothered by. It could

be anything you want. I I don't like this marketing campaign. I don't like this,

I don't I you know, our Our four zero one k sucks. Well,

whatever it is, like but 2 things that you want the company to stop right

now and 2 things that you want the company

To continue doing because you love it, and then 2 things you would like them

to start doing. So Okay. Something that's not even on the radar, like,

and and the the ones the the thing I found is because I was in

the leadership team of that company. The thing I found the most fascinating was

the the start. The the the stop and the continue

ones Were like normal stuff. It was like, okay, some things

we can control, some we can't, some we can influence, some we can't, whatever.

But the ones that said start, like, give me 2 things that you wish the

company would do tomorrow, they were all over the place with it,

like Everywhere from giving back to charities

to offering daycare to, like, it was all over the spectrum, and

I found that those were the most fascinating parts of it because that to

me, that was the most personalized version

of this. Like, so like, you know, when you're saying I want the

company to Stop doing this. It could be because it you think it offends other

people or you think it attacks a certain minority group or you think

it whatever. Like, there's always, like, I I I just don't like being involved with

a company that does this. Like, it's not but the the start piece was

very personal all the time. It was interesting,

it was very interesting. And

the continue was always pretty

Themed. I'll just say that. Like, across the board of the of the

hundreds of people that we had working for the company. There's a

general The jury consistency. Yeah. There's a general line there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Now that that that is

interesting. I wonder if, I have to think about more

about that because I wonder if it's the spirit of or the sense of not

the spirit of the psychological sense of

creativity, and freshness that's coming in at the beginning. And then in the middle,

you're just, whatever. And then at the end, it's more like,

okay. I guess we're back to status quo now. I wonder if that's the psychological

transitions for people inside of an organizational behavioral

context like what you're talking about that that that picks

that up. That's interesting. I have to think some more about that. But the

exercise itself was awesome. I loved it. I I actually really liked it. They just

called it Start Stop Continue. It was the And I've heard a variation

of that before. I don't know where. I've read about it in some organizational

behavior literature piece. But,

but, yeah, that that that definitely that definitely has some value.

Excellent. Now back to the book, back to or back to the story anyway, The

Burglar's Christmas. So we're gonna skip over the MacGuffin piece. You're gonna have to read

it to figure out what that is. We're gonna go

to William, talking to

his mother. I'm not gonna tell you how he got there, though.

You have to read it and find out. I'd rather you wouldn't, Will.

Listen. This is his mother talking. Listen. Between you and me, there can

be no secrets. We are more alike than other people, dear. Dear boy, I know

all about it. I am a woman and circumstances were different with me, but we

are of one blood. I have lived all your life before you.

You have never had an impulse that I have not known. You have never touched

a brink that my feet have not trod. This is your birthday night. 24

years ago, I foresaw all this. I was a young woman

then, and I had hot battles of my own, and I felt your likeness to

me. You are not like other babies. From the hour you were born, you

were restless and discontented as I have been before you. You used to brace

your strong little limbs against mine and try to throw me off as you did

tonight. Tonight, you have come back to me just as you always did after you

ran away to swim in the river that was forbidden you, the river you loved

because it was forbidden. You were tired and sleepy just as you used to be

then, only a little older and a little paler and a little more foolish.

I never asked you where you had been then nor will I now. You have

come back to me. That's all in all to me. I know your

every possibility and limitation as a composer knows his instrument.

He found no answer that was worthy to give to a talk like this.

He had not found life easy since he had lived by his wits.

He had come to know poverty at close quarters. He had known what it was

to be gay with an empty pocket to wear violets in his buttonhole when he

had not breakfasted, and all the hateful shams of the poverty of

idleness. He had been a reporter on a big metropolitan daily where

men grind out their brains on paper until they have not 1 idea left and

still grind on. He had worked in real estate office where

ignorant men were swindled. He had sung in a comic

opera chorus, and played Harris in an Uncle Tom's Cabin Company

and edited A Socialist Weekly. He had been dogged by

debt and hunger and grinding poverty Until to sit there

until to sit there by a warm fire without concern as to how it would

be paid for seemed unnatural.

Not gonna read the whole thing, but just for reference in our script, we do

have The story of the prodigal son,

taken from, a reference from the bible,

from, from Luke 15, 11 through

32. Not gonna read that whole thing. But, what I am gonna do is I'm

gonna point out some parallels that jumped out to me early with this. So

When the mother is talking to the son, and and don't worry, he has interactions

with his father too. It is the idea of the prodigal

son returning. Right? It's this idea of prodigal return,

which is again is is is framed by Kathar,

even in that last piece where he talks about all the jobs that he's had

and all the things that he's done, it's framed in a cyclical

context, not a linear one. Right? And it's this idea

of as, as,

well, as Nietzsche would talk about, this is actually one of the truths buried in

the in the Nietzschean two lies and a truth dance that

he used to do. This myth of eternal return.

Right? The idea that you could always return back to the place where you

started, or you will always return back to the place where you started. And, of

course, that's a that's a biblical trope, which we do often and Catherine's

works, whether it be from Proverbs, whether it be from Genesis.

In this case, this is from Genesis and from Luke, you know, from ashes to

ashes and from dust to dust. Right? You're gonna be returning back to the

place where you came from. Well,

that entire idea of of the myth of return is

the MacGuffin for Cather after all, not the act that

William engages in to get himself into, and then through the house,

and to get his mother's attention.

What's interesting, the turn that Catherine does here at a literary level,

which is interesting to me, is that in the prodigal son, the

story of the prodigal son, it's Father that accepts the son back. Right?

But here, it's the mother that accepts the son back. By the way, in the

story of the prodigal son, Jesus, when telling this story to his disciples,

does not mention a mother at all. There's no

female presence in that in that biblical story, which is why

which is one of the one of the major reasons why in a patriarchal

culture, like, the one that the bi patriarch Easter

culture that the bible came out of. This is why it shocked his

audiences, when he, when he actually said it. As a

matter of fact, they were probably scandalized by the idea that a

father would run to his son.

That was kind of a no no. Well,

in our American culture, that now transposed over to the mother

because the mother is the one that holds that maternal care.

Right? And, the father, as is often in

Katharine's work, the father represents the world. Right?

And we see this in my Antonia. We saw this in my Antonia with grandfather

and grandmother. Grandmother was way more maternal in that,

in that book, My grandfather represented,

the wheel of the world that was constantly turning that,

the the boy in in my entity, a gem, I believe, if I remember correctly,

was was attempting to break himself on in an attempt to get to

modernity. Right? And Antonia, of course,

rejected that and stayed in a different spot.

Now, Catherine uses this inversion of the

biblical narrative to address the growing separation between parents and children

in America. That was being changed by ambition and industrialization.

The son, William, in A Burglar's Christmas

doesn't return to the farm. He goes to the

city. He goes to Chicago,

not to the Nebraska prairie. And even his parents,

in an attempt to either reconnect or to move or whatever,

it's very vague there because I think Katherine had That part out.

They, you know, they moved to Chicago as well. So there's a dynamic

here moving from the farm to the city and everything shifting

around and changing, which gets us, of course, to the role of return

and the myth of return. We already talked about forgiveness. So let's talk about this

idea of returning. I don't remember which

writer it was who said it. I will probably remember it as

we're talking, but, you know, this idea of you can't go home again.

Yeah. Maybe if you think that, like, progress is a

linear thing. Right? There's no cycles. But, Tom, can you go

home again? Can leaders go home again? Can you wind up back in the place

where you started? I mean, I

can't see why not. Only, I I was told at a very

young age The you know, to be nice to people on the way up

because you're gonna see them again on the way down. That's right. So, like, the

whole idea of, like, you know, If you it's

funny that I had a I had another conversation with

my other son, which was talking about, like, There's a

there's a a time in your life where you're so new at

your profession that you just need to, you

know, Be quiet, learn, work

hard, just go move forward. And then there's a tipping point where it starts to

balance the balance of knowledge

And youthfulness catches up, like, to the point where it's, like, this

perfect mix of, like and I I was telling them, like, it Happens kind of

in your thirties. Right? Like, in your Mhmm. Early early to mid thirties where

you've got that 10 years of experience, but you're still young enough to to have

the ambition to drive x y z. And then when

you hit your forties, it's like you don't wanna do the hard work anymore. You

wanna strategize. You wanna be the top level, like, you know Mhmm. And then you

hit your Late fifties, sixties, and you're like, I just want a

job. I'll take whatever job you give me. Like, right? Like, so to your

point, like, but it's So yes, I

think you can. I don't think everybody does, but I think it's

possible that you can go back to the beginning and back to your roots and,

you know, I I I definitely think it's possible.

So I I think of my own journey in my own,

you know, business. Yeah. I don't think of it, Mike, because I'm not going back

to where I started either. Well, you know, I didn't think I was either,

and COVID happened, and I wound up right back at the kitchen table. Like, it

was weird, like, literally in the exact same spot.

And I I sat there when we were all had to shut

down and go go home, and I had my laptop up literally in the exact

same spot at the exact same table, and I thought,

wow. 10 years to go, like, 4

inches. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I didn't I didn't have that. And I didn't really know what to

do with that. Like, I didn't really know where to put that, so I just

I didn't think about it, and I moved on. Yeah. I didn't I didn't have

that issue. I I mean, we were already before COVID even started, we were already

generally working from home and Yeah. Like, we we already had remote stuff going on,

like, it wasn't really that bad, but what I what I was referring to is

I started my professional career in the restaurant industry. I'm not doing that

again. Just letting you know. I'm not You know? I'm

not anything up back there. You don't wanna wind up where Anthony Bourdain wound up

when he was 45 in different fries. You've been hot and fries and, like, greasy.

He's like, what am I doing? I'm 45. Yeah. Exactly. Well,

actually, Anthony Bourdain had a very interesting life, So we will use him as

an example, but I'm just saying, like, I'm not going I'm not getting to the

point where I'm going back to that. That's that's what I was getting at,

so But Well but the rule applies. The the so,

essentially, what I was thinking, like, as I was thinking about this is it doesn't

matter where you end up in life or what job you have, What role you

play. That doesn't matter. The the the the the comment is, you know,

be nice to them on the way up because you're gonna see them again on

the way down. It's just people in general. Like, when you when you look at

a and I remember about 10 years ago,

there was this huge conversation that was popping up All over

the place on how we have to change the entire

workplace dynamic because millennials just were different than we were. Right?

Like, Millennial well, guess what, people? Millennials are turning

45. Like, they're not. And if you start talking to them

today and you ask them today If they could talk to themselves when they

were 20, they would everyone everyone that I know, anyway, every

one of them that I know would say, I would smack the absolute crap out

of myself and tell myself to straighten up and fly right. Like, because

this this whole philosophy of, like, We we

are the workforce. We are gonna dictate to you what we're gonna do. We are

gonna dictate it just went away. It went away as they got a little older

and realized that they were just being Obnoxious. Now we got Gen Z coming up

thinking the same goddamn way. Excuse my language. But, like,

you know, 10 years from now, Gen Z's gonna realize, guess what? You are no

different than the 18 other generations that came before you. Just work hard. Just work.

Get a work ethic and go to work. So so this is

This is interesting that you bring this up, the generational cyclical piece, because,

the number one module that

I had that I was that I was training on,

before before COVID. Number 1 module I had was managing

the multigenerational workforce, number 1. And people

would pay me 1,000 of dollars to come in and

say what Tom just said for free.

I actually feel kinda good about that, actually.

You should. You should feel good about that. I do feel good about that, actually.

And, there he is correct. The the the reams

of digital ink that were spent talking

about the millennials. Unbelievable.

And now and now we are in a space

where, Achay, Tom Levy.

Reams of digital ink are being spent on

How Gen z is gonna revolutionize the workplace.

And the reality is there's nothing that scares a millennial more than a Gen Z

er. Just like there was nothing that scared a baby

boomer more than a millennial. Gen Gen x.

Well, we always get forgotten, so I'm just gonna skip over us anyway.

Alright. Yeah. I guess. It doesn't matter. We don't scare anybody. Only

13 to 20,000,000 of us. We don't scare anybody. We're just hanging out. We don't

wanna be scary. We just wanna why would scary, please. Come

on. Just relax. Dude, you're all I just

think it I just think it's funny that every generation complains about the

next one. Right? And then they end up falling into that Same. Absolutely.

And this is the cycle thing that the public says, the

our our our small p, not large p, not capital p,

political. Our small p progressive, like, tendencies

to believe that everything improves. Right? And we get stove this is

why This is why, like, the things that people argue about over on

social media at a certain point, and this is this happened to me a few

years ago, I realized I need to get out of the social media arguments

Because not only are we not advancing

anything, but we're going to have the same arguments 10

minutes from now. And there's no,

to paraphrase with Seinfeld, there's no hugging and no learning.

Okay. The no hugging part, fine. I don't wanna hug you if you're on Twitter.

Please stay away from me. You don't wanna hug me either. But I would rather

there be some learning. And there's not learning. There's

no growth here. And, of course, you know, you then

can can criticize the digital silos and the way that they don't foster growth and

it's all dopaminergic and blah blah blah blah. Okay. Yes. All that is is

true. But at a certain point, people have to decide. And I was reading a

blog post about this the other day where the guy at the end who has

made his business over the last 15 years of looking at the,

basically being pro acceler what he calls accelerationist now, which is

now the term used for progress. But being pro accelerationist, he's

like, maybe at the end of the blog post, he he after 15

years, I've been reading this guy for a long time. He went, Maybe

the Internet isn't gonna save us. And I

thought if I thought the thing that

that that Danny Glover says to Mel

Gibson in lethal weapon 4 right at the beginning of that movie when they're

sitting on the bench and he just looks at him. And Bill Gibson can't do

it because he got whipped by the kid, and he was, like, faking or whatever

and trying to get out of the boxing ring, that first little setup that they

have. Yeah. I have. And Danny looks at it and goes,

finally. It finally happened.

And that's and that's just what I want. I wanna I wanna literally look at

these people who have been writing deans of digital of

of of digital ink about the millennials, and now are doing the same thing about

Gen Z years and are now getting thrown over by the Gen Z years. People

who are talking about how the Internet was going to save us and are now

sort of backing away from that. You know, the folks who are arguing in

social media silos about things that, Quite frankly,

you know, we could have solved 10 years ago if we'd realized that we're we

have the same conversation 10 minutes ago. Like, what are we doing here? What are

we what are we what are we doing? And you just it's just I feel

I have that feeling. I do. I have that feeling of, like, Murdoch

finally. It finally happened. Yeah.

I hope so, actually. I'm not

so convinced, though, because, you know, they're the the Gen Zers are

already talking about like, So, of course, what what what age group

is the Gen Zers right now? They're early twenties. Right? Like, they're 18 to

34, allegedly. So 34 year olds,

really, or Gen z? No way. They they do not think like a 21

year old. That that's 2 different things. Anyway, whatever. The early

twenties. They're already complaining. Giving you the numbers. I'm just I'm not I'm not

justifying them. The the early twenties people, like

21 to 26 year olds are already complaining about high

school kids. They're already complaining about the fact that they don't

understand. They don't understand the the fight. They don't understand. I'm like,

oh my god, you people. This is like of course

they don't. They're in high school. What are you expecting them To to be think

like, I don't understand what you're expecting of them. They have no

life experience whatsoever. They've done. You want them to have an opinion? Stop it. Well,

then you said you said, You know, by the time you hit 30, you're

sort of you've been 10 years in your career. I would say the numbers have

been pushed back to 40 now. I don't think it's 30. I think it's 30.

Think of mid 30, so I was thinking, like, 35. Okay. Okay. Sure.

35. Okay. So where this a lot of this started

With the with the youth culture pieces,

it was in the 19 sixties with the idea that,

you would never trust anybody over 30 granted to us by the baby

boomers. This philosophy of the people over 30, which, by the

way, I heard this the other day, and I will repeat this because it is

true. The person who was the vice president of the Rand Corporation

was 32 in 1970 something.

K? Now this person who was bringing this up

on this other podcast was bringing this up as a as a critique

of the capitalist system. Right? That somehow we have failed capitalism

or somehow capitalism has failed young people by not allowing people in their

thirties to be vice presidents of major corporations.

Except the thing is people in their thirties now who are

Pache, Gen Z, or millennials, whichever, it doesn't matter. I

don't care. Those people are running startups.

Those people are, senior leaders in

banks now. They are moving into those positions

where the VP of Rand was in 1970.

The difference between Them and the VP of Rand in

1970 is the VP of Rand in 1970

had 3, maybe 4 kids that he had to pay

for that kept his head on straight. That's the fundamental

difference, right, between past generations and this current one, and this

is not me making this up. You can go look at the fertility numbers. You

could go look at the demographic numbers. Right? You could go look at the replacement

numbers. I'm not making any of this up. This is not a crazy theory. This

is not Some nonsense that Hazon made up on his podcast.

This is reality. You can go look at the numbers and see what

the Birth rates are and what the family creation rates

are and with the Kaiser Permanente Organization has measured with

this. The UN has measured this in the United States. For

people between the typically in the childbearing ages between 26, I think it's, like,

34, I think it's down to, like, what, like,

60, 70% of people, like, making babies? They make it babies and make it

families. Well, There is something

about that process that matures you in a

way that we we

We dismiss. Right? Now don't get me wrong. Can you be

matured by that at any point in time when you have a child no matter

where you are at up to the age of 40, 50, whatever. Yes.

Absolutely. This is why, like, Larry King was popping out kids when he was

60. He was constantly trying to mature himself,

and none of you who are listening know who Larry King is. It's fine. I

know who Larry King is. You know who Larry King is. Well, the younger folks,

they know who Larry King is. Google it. He was interesting. Google it. He was

interesting guy. I think there's something to

that theory. So the the the 30 year

olds are being put in charge. We are trusting them.

But The people who are being put in charge are

towards the end of the year, the Double Income No Kids crowd, right,

who are right. Yeah. Who are, you know,

running their mouths. Let's just say that. Yeah. It's so funny.

Like, I again, I was talking to one of my kids the other day, and

we Talking about different like, they're all all of my kids just for the audience's

per reference. My youngest kid is almost

22. Like, so she'll be she'll be 22 in a in a month or 2.

So all of them and she's the youngest. So I have kids ranging from 20

1 to 20 8 to 2029. So

and none of them have kids, but I when

I was younger, I had my 1st kid when I was 20, 21 years

old. Mhmm. So when we were talking over the over this past

weekend, A few of my kids were home, and we we had a family event.

So we're just shooting shooting the breeze, having a couple of drinks, and just chatting,

you know, whatever. Right? But We were talking about how or they

were asking me what like, why

myself like, I I was so much more advanced. To your

point, I was further along in my career at 25 than they are.

Like, I I I was I was a a regional vice

president of sales At, like, 28. Right? Like so

and my kids are like, I'm not even close to there. What is it? And

I I said to them, and I I never put I never thought of it

this way, But I I was like, well, because I had you

guys to worry about. I had to drive so

hard To sustain our family, that there was no

way there was nowhere to put me except for let me move up the

ladder. Like, I I was so driven to be successful and move up the

ladder and make more money and because I had you guys to worry about. You

guys don't have any kids to worry about, so you care how much money you

make? It's like Right. It's like I can go if

I can afford that $1,000 a month apartment, then so

be it. Where for me, the $1,000 a month apartment was

the baseline, like, baseline, like, that was the the foundation

of, like, our existence, and then everything above that, I had to go

fight for to get more, like, more, like, food and a

car and whatever. Like, I like, it I I was like

and and to your point, I wasn't even thinking of it from a maturity level,

but it absolutely true. I look at myself at 22,

23 years old, and my kids Now at 23, 24 years old, I'm

like, that's a joke. It's a sorry. I don't but it's

like but it is true. Like, they think of They're they're still shooting

cans off the back porch, for crying out loud. I'm like, I stopped doing that

when I was 18 17 because I had I had to worry about a kid.

You know? Like, And and I

have 5 kids. None of my 5 kids have any

kids. They're not even starting yet. So this is

this is the thing. I think that is the fundamental separation. I think what

What you're getting to here is is absolutely critical. I also

think that this is the tension that you see in the culture,

right, between people who did that and the

people who didn't. And now the people who didn't are are the

vast majority of people. So the vast majority of people are now on that other

side and this is why you have the double income, no kids

people running around cocking and crowing and beating their

chests,

Except What are you gonna do when you're old? Yeah. My my

youngest son just said that to me, he's like, dad, I hope my nieces and

nephew like me because, I'm not planning on having kids, somebody has to take care

of me when I'm old. It's like, good luck, buddy, because I won't be here.

I'll be gone.

That's all I have to say to that. Yeah. You know,

and so that that dynamic

at a cultural level, I don't know how we address that. I I don't I

don't know how you even how you even begin to get arms around that. However,

I The scary the scary piece is this generation thinks that, like, especially younger

people think that, well, you know, that's the government's responsibility to take care of people

at at that when they get to a certain and that I was like, nah.

Nah. Don't don't bank on that. That is not the case,

but they do they they do feel that way. Even if you let

me let me just say a caution, and you can

clip this and send this to your your your multiple 20 year old

kids. Even if you vote for a politician that

can give you all of that, even if you vote for a

politician that makes policies that you think will give you all that,

Politicians and policies cannot overcome the laws of nature.

Alright. That's it. Those are my 3 sentences. That's my 3 sentence

just that's the wisdom, and I know it won't be listened to. It's

okay. Just be sure that who you're voting for

Or it will be listened to, but it'll be too late. But it'll be too

late. It'll be too late. So, yeah, you gotta get

out. You gotta hustle. I mean, I always one of the and I'll I'll close-up

by saying this around the quarter here because we we need to close our podcast

today. But, you know, One of the things that I get run the

most for on social media when I say it or when I tweet it or

when I write it or when I post it is, say what you want about

the baby boomers. They at least got after it. You know? Yeah.

They might have destroyed x, y, z institutions and a, b, c environment and

rampant capitalism and consumerism, you know, all of the critiques for the Marxist left.

And then, of course, the critiques from the current the libertarian right are, they

destroyed freedom. They voted for all these politicians that that surveilled

us. They built these big tech surveillance states, blah blah blah. Okay. Yeah. But

you know what they did? They got after it,

period. They got after it. They actually decided that

instead of, to Tom's point, instead of sitting around and

hoping that someone in the future would do something. They said,

no. I'm going to do something right now.

And by the way, something beyond posting online, which, yes, I know they didn't

have that, but even if they had, they probably would have ignored it.

Something beyond merely making a protest. Right? Like, all those

protest videos that you see of those people that are running around in the sixties

seventies, you know what those people became? University professors, and

eventually, they ran up well, they wound up running the universities.

They went and did something. A lot of those people went and

became vice presidents of corporations. They went in, did

something. They busted their behind to do something, and

that is the one of the other critical differences.

So, between past generations, I would say, The the

generation is now retiring and moving into its, twilight

and, the current generation of folks that we, that we have

now in our, in our culture. We're speaking of which

back to the book. Back to the

story. It's only a couple of couple of paragraphs here at the end of The

Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cather. He drew alongside.

This is, This is William. He drew a long sigh of

rich content. The old life with all of its

bitterness and useless antagonism And flimsy sophistries.

Its brief delights that were always tinged with fear and distrust and unfaith.

That whole miserable, futile, swindled world of Bohemia

Seemed immeasurably distant and far away, like a dream that is over and

done. And as the chimes rang joyfully outside

and sleep pressed heavily Upon his eyelids, he wondered dimly if

the author of the sad little riddle of ours were not able to solve it

after all, and if the potter would not finally meet out all

his Meet out his all comprehensive justice, such as

none but he could have, to his things of clay, which are made

in his own patterns, weak or strong, for his own

ends. And if someday, we will not awaken and find

that all evil is a dream, a mental distortion that

will pass when the dawn shall break.

We've just been talking about this in a different kind of context, but, he

did live a bohemian life. And that's, by the way, with Cather, That's the term

that was used for somebody who was not having children when they should have been

having them and was running around doing multiple jobs and Footloose and Fancy Free and

wound up poor. They used to call that bohemian.

It wasn't it wasn't, it wasn't I I don't want you to think of as

I often do. Don't want you to think of a person with a man bun,

drinking a Starbucks. It's not what I want you to think of when you think

of Bohemian. I want you to think of what Willa Cather

is considering. And Tom laughed at that, but that's that's it's this is

this is the image that I have in my my head. So forgive

me, for all the people with man buns that I have offended.

No. Don't forgive me. You're not a man bun. You're ridiculous. Stop. Okay.

Well, there goes half our audience. Alright. Well alright.

So, my wife would just say I'm just mad because I'm bald. She would just

say that. I I I feel your pain. So,

I get a little more hair than you. Not much. Not much? Not much.

Not much at all. I know what you're holding on to there, Tom. But, anyway

I just bought a new brush. I just get one more one more brush out

of it. 1 more brush? One more brush? Okay. Okay. Alright. Okay.

Just

bald is beautiful, sir. Anyway,

And you can carry it. You got the head to carry it. You're fine.

I believe you. I'll take your word for it for now.

Hold on hold on those last messages of hope. It's the last messages of

hope. My my significant other said my my wife will I'll be in there, and

she'd be like, Are you brushing your 4 hairs again?

I think there's a few more than 4. Come on. Got it. Yeah. You got

a few more than 4. You're fine. You're probably fine. Well, what do I care?

You're not you're not bunting it up, like I said, with a Starbucks cup and

a pair of, like, you know, Tom slippers. Like, you're not doing that. Like,

an urban area. And my point is this,

like, the the the moralistic,

Midwestern anti bohemian idea comes through here in

Katharine's work. And, we already have talked about this a

little bit, but I wanna make a broader critique or a broader point, not a

critique of broader point. There is a price to living in society

with a social structure, but there is also a price to wandering around and

living a libertine and bohemian style.

And the idea that you could live a particular lifestyle

without Consequence didn't begin in the 19 sixties,

interestingly enough. It actually began

Well, it began in the 18 nineties, and it went through cycles before

it hit its penultimate cycle,

Probably right around now. We're probably at the peak of that idea of being

able to live without consequence. And

so William is portrayed as having paid the price for living a

bohemian lifestyle, but he was able, through forgiveness and

through the miracle of return, to avoid

the punishment. He was able to kinda slip past that. Right?

Yeah. He was going to well, he wasn't gonna engage in

robbery for his food, but he was able to slip past that and

move into a mother's love. By

the way, his friend was no help to him as he left him

right at the beginning of the story.

Gather's point is that family and home are all you can count on

in a hard world. And this may ring really weird

into our tone deaf post or this may ring as tone deaf to our postmodern

years, but It is definitely

something that is true, and it's definitely something

that is,

Evident, right, in the ways in which we engage with each other,

and it's evident for us as, as leaders.

So as we round the corner here, I'm gonna

as we round the corner here, Wanna go

ahead and, and ask Tom this. How can

leaders stay on the path with all of this mishmash that we've talked about with

the burglar's Christmas, this holiday season.

I was giving you the hard question at the end. It's the last hard question

of the year. You're done. Like, you don't understand. There's no more hard questions after

this. That's true. Well, the The the next hard questions are coming on the other

side of the new year. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I

think I think there's I think there's some I I think there's a lot more

I think there's a lot more question than that. I think it's a

much bigger question than that because I think I think as a

leader I mean, you set the tone and culture of the company. Right?

So if the tone and if the tone and culture of your company is we

care about you as an individual person, as a Family person as a, you

know, we care about what happens to you outside of these 4 walls.

Yeah. And I think it's mission critical that

You you continue that

feeling and philosophy throughout the the course of of your, you know,

your Engagement with that employee. Right? But if your if your

tone and culture of your company is you come here to work, come work, we

pay you, And then you go home and you're on your own.

That, like, I and and and both of those 2 worlds exist, by

the way. Like, a lot of people think that Every company nowadays

is warm and fuzzy, and that's not entirely true. There are plenty of companies out

there that just think of you as a number and that you have a A

role to play in that you you go to work and you go home, and

then when you're home, you're on your own time and you do your own thing,

and, you know, you might have a little bit, You know, in

in those cases, you might have a little bit of, like,

a lower management person that that gives a rat's

patoot about about you on a personal level. And they build their

own culture within their team, but that's not

necessarily a corporate culture, so it's still, You know, it still goes

back to the leader of that smallish group of of people

that's this is the culture that we're gonna have. We're gonna care about each other.

We're gonna do things. But As a corporate culture, it doesn't always fly.

I I just think I think there's I think there's some,

And this gets even more difficult too with the the the work from

home and, like, all this remote remote working thing. We don't have the

Talks at the water cooler anymore that people always talk about and and, like or

you see in some of the past movies and, like, the it's There's

a lot of disconnect. You know, I'll give you a good

my my wife works for a very, very large medical,

company here in the northeast, and she's a remote worker,

and they were just talking about a Christmas party. And she went,

I'm driving all the way there for just for what? To see people that I

don't even see on a regular basis? Like, we're all remote. I don't know these

people. I don't know them. I have no interest in going and hanging out with

people I don't know. And they all work for the same company. Right? Like,

so and that's the culture that they set. They like, they they've

given that that Culture power. Like, they've given that that

so to have lack of participation in a holiday party is their own damn

fault. Right. Yeah. No. You're right. Right? So, like,

I think I think it I think it starts with forget about how

you interact or what you do is on a day to day like, it's not

about your actions and And and interactions on a on a on

a 1 on 1 level. I think for leaders, it's more about the

the the tone and culture that we set for the company And making sure that

we are consistent with that tone and culture, making sure that we

if we have an open door policy, make sure you keep an open door policy.

Don't Don't shy away from hard conversations and don't, like you gotta, you

know, make sure that you practice what you preach and then talk, you know, walk

the walk, talk the talk, all that stuff, all those All those stupid

cliches that we never understood how it works, this is how it works. Like, this

is how it works? This is the point of it. Like, this is the point

of all of those cliches that That you gotta, you know, you have to make

sure that, you know, that you're and that there's,

like, you know, you're setting people up for success, and I'm not talking about their

own Success is like, if I wanna be a millionaire, I'm gonna go work

for company a, and they're gonna make me a millionaire. That's not what I

mean. We were talking, earlier today. I was talking about,

with a couple of, Hae Sung and I's mutual friends or colleagues.

I'm not sure what you call the growth craft advisers, but We'll just call them

friends for this purpose. And we were talking about definitions of

success and what it looks like, and it it is a very

personalized thing. Your definition of success and my definition of

success may be completely different. 1 person may think, you

know, having Ending their life with 1,000,000 and 1,000,000

and 1,000,000 of dollars is the definition of success. Another person may think the

definition of success is When I die, there's

tons and tons of people at my funeral praising how much of a good person

I was. Had nothing to do with my wealth, and I have more to do

with my person and and who I am and what and how

my Close knit society or or or

or, you know, people view me Mhmm. Is my definition of

success. So If you really wanna be a truly good leader, I

think that's the biggest part of it is is really identifying

People as individuals, and then have a collective being able to have a

collective tone and culture of your company. I think

that that requires, introspection.

And and, yes, introspection, as I mentioned as we've mentioned repeatedly

today, is, is an arrow that points backward, but I also

think it requires goal setting, which is the arrow that points forward. And we talked

about goal setting, and we kinda I will say we mocked it, but we

definitely sort of talked about how people fail, you know, at goal

setting. I I think the reason people fail at goal setting is because they haven't

merged that introspection, that introspection and that goal setting successfully together. There's still too much

friction between those 2 those 2 areas. Plus, there's a lack of

realization of what your priority should be. Right? And so I would encourage

folks when you get into introspection as a in a leadership position, or

when you're introspective as a leader, to figure out what you want to be

introspective about. Do you wanna be introspective about culture? Do you

wanna be introspective about success? Do you wanna be introspective about, the

goals that you wanna see your team accomplish. What do you want to be

introspective about? There's also this

idea of return. Right? Forgiveness, reconciliation. We talked a little bit about

this. Forgiveness has to be more than just a set of PR words for your

little your your lawyer or your legal firm. They actually have to mean something. And

by the way, if you're not actually sorry, don't say you are. Yeah.

Right. Really don't. Don't don't say you are. We actually will

appreciate it more if you don't say you are. Now I'm not talking about,

you know, sort of the big brands who have

400 lawyers and 300 PR people and all that. That's a different kind of thing.

I'm talking The small and medium sized organizations who are definitely embedded

in the community where the transparency of what it is you're

doing can be seen by everybody and the immediacy of that can be

felt. Really think critically about

what apologizing actually means if you have done something wrong. And if you haven't or

you don't believe you have, What are your introspective

explanations for why you chose the path

that you chose? I actually saw this recently in my own life from

a local leader, who said something

from a stage, got a bunch of people's ruffles ruffles feathered, and, yes, I

did say ruffles feathered, on Facebook. And, then came

back the next week and didn't apologize,

explained, Moved on.

I thought that was an interesting move. Very interesting. And he

didn't need Fifty lawyers and 40 PR agencies to

figure out how to do that. He just needed to be

connected to his community and connected to the people that

he was making the message towards.

I also think that we can get from the burglar's Christmas kind of what we

call what we talked about a little bit at the end. There's trade offs and

costs when we do things. The the great economist, Thomas

Sowell, who hopefully will be around with us for

another year. But the great economist Thomas Sowell once

said that, life is full of trade

offs, Some of which are brutal

because we live in a world of limited resources, limited time, limited

money, limited attention, limited emotional engagement,

Limited care, limited everything. Everything is limited.

Even our lives are limited, and so we have to make trade offs. Well, trade

offs come with trade offs come with

results, and we have to be clear about what the results are. I think

leaders have to be clear about what the results of the trade offs are and

the results of the decisions that they're making, and be clear to their

team members, be clear to their followers, be clear to everybody. Look. If we make

this decision, this is what the consequence is going to be potentially. Or in

this trade off, there were no great decisions. There

was just the best of all the bad ones.

And that's usually, by the way, 99% of the time, it's the best of all

the bad decisions. There is no, I think of the line from Armageddon.

There is no good plan, mister president. This is the best of all the bad

ones.

And and that's that's the reality of leadership. That's the reality

of trade offs, and we need to wrap our arms, I think, around that

reality. Finally, humor.

Like, you gotta laugh. You gotta not take yourself so so

seriously. You know, we've we've laughed a little bit on this

podcast and and quite frankly, this year, we've had a great time, hanging out

with Tom and Getting to know him better, and, hopefully, you

all listening have gotten to know him better as well. Tom will be back

next year, next season, for the 3rd

season. I can't believe I'm saying that. For the 3rd

season of the leadership lessons from the great books podcast. So we'll be back with

more great books that may maybe Tom has read, maybe Tom

has not read. At least you will have read the synopsis of them. And,

he will he will give us his Fresh insights

and fresh takes because this is good because, see, he comes to the game,

almost like virgin snow. Right? And, you know, kind of walking

forth and putting his footprints there putting his footprint out there

for for for the benefit of of of of us and for the

benefit of myself. And so I appreciate Tom's insights and the ways in

which he frames things, and it gets me to go, I would not have thought

about it that way. So, I want to express

my gratitude. Look what I did there. See what I did there?

To Tom Libby for joining me on the podcast this year. Thank you, Tom.

So it's been my pleasure. And vice versa, by the way. I I I find

it, fascinating, you know, to listen to your insights

and how you you Explain certain things. And I I mean,

I find it even more it I I find it interesting sometimes

how, like, we'll agree, but The way that

we get there is different, which I find also very fascinating. Like,

so, you know, we don't have an awful lot of, like, you

know, Argumentative kind of, you know,

discontent on the on, you know, when we're on together, so I I do like

that too. Although, I'm sure there's value to that. I'm just saying that, you know,

for me, I think that, you know, being, approaching things from a a bit more,

of a lightheartedness and And being able to, you know, a bit

more accepting of opinions and being able to understand and, like,

that stuff is is is it's important. It's important to me, and so I

I again, and that's kind of my leadership style too if you haven't figured it

out. Like, I just you know, when I run teams and such, I I care

about people. I genuinely care about people that work for me. I genuinely care about

their families. I genuinely want them to to succeed. Whatever their

definition of success Is go it it turns into my definition of

success for them, so I don't try to instill my ideas or

ideals or anything onto anybody else, and I think that that

has Has, you know, been successful for me. I've

I've I've run some very good teams. I've had some awesome people work for me,

and I've got, you know and and again, and then being on this podcast and

Seeing how some of that experience can kinda come through, and and if

I can help 1 person, I'm a happy guy. Like, if there's 1 person listening

to this podcast, and they hear something that I say that gives them an epip

some sort of epiphany or some sort of, like, light bulb goes off and they

realize that They could you know, that it just helped them in some way. I

I think that that's that's fantastic. It makes me a very happy happy person, so

I'll I'll continue to do as long as you invite me back. Awesome. Well, we're

inviting you back next year. So, let's, let's as we usually do, let's go 1

book at a time, 1 week at a time, 1 month at a time. Let's

see where we wind up at. And so, from all of us here at the

Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, thank you very much for your

ears,

and, well, we're out.