Presentation consultant for hire

Over the past four years, I have written quite a bit about my hatred of  meetings. Regardless of the context, the majority of the meetings that I have been required to attend over the course of my lifetime have been ineffectively designed and poorly run.

I’ve admonished presenters to not be ordinary. 

I’ve begged the people who plan and conduct meetings to adopt the Khan Academy’s meeting policy.

I have advised meeting attendees on strategies to express your disapproval of a presenter without risking blatant insubordination or disrespect.

I have offered the all-important but never adhered to The Spiderman Principle of Meetings and Presentations.

In addition to the writing that I have done, I have also become an expert on communication.

I’m a professional storyteller with a long list of accomplishments.

I’m a professional speaker who is paid to deliver keynotes, commencement speeches, and inspirational addresses. I conduct workshops on a variety of subjects ranging from teaching to writing to storytelling and more. I’ve delivered TED Talks. I’ve emceed events like the Mayor’s Charity Ball, fundraising galas, and story slams for colleges and literary festivals. 

I’m a teacher who must maintain the attention and engagement of two dozen 10 year old children every day while delivering content critical to their future success.

I’m a wedding DJ who has been emceeing receptions for more than 19 years.

I’m a minister who has officiated wedding ceremonies, baby naming ceremonies and more.

I offer these credentials as a means of demonstrating my expertise when it comes to the effective design and delivery of content, because I am proposing a new line of work for myself:

The presentation consultant.

Yes, another job. But one for which I would excel mightily.

And while it may seem crazy to simply declare yourself to be something you were not yesterday (and in the process invent a newish line of work), this is not without precedent. Three years ago, I declared myself a professional best man, and since then, five grooms have attempted to hire me, with only geographic distance standing in our way from doing business together. I’ve also had two reality show producers reach out to me about possibly doing a television show in which I would be a professional best man, so these things can happen.

I’ve put myself out there many times before and found surprising success. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of being bold enough to take the first step.

So today I declare myself a presentation consultant. It’s a new job of sorts. There are many meeting consultants out there, but these are people who handle the logistics of meetings and conferences. They arrange for locations and transportation, hire vendors, and may hire speakers and even assist in the planning of content, but in the most traditional sense, they do not assist in the training of these presenters.

They hire professionals. 

In contrast, my services would look something like this:

You are a leader of some sort who is responsible for conducting meetings and training sessions in your organization. Let's start with the assumption that you have a lot of room to grow, because you probably do. I know this will be hard to hear, because if you are a leader of some sort, your ego is probably large (especially if you are a man).

That’s okay. Large egos are assets and exceptionally helpful in leadership as long as they are not also fragile.

There is nothing more dangerous and detrimental in business than the large, fragile ego. It’s like working for an overfilled balloon. At any moment, it may pop.

But I digress.

Regardless of the skill that you think you possess, your subordinates are probably not fans of your meetings and training sessions. You’re probably not planning and executing them well,  or at least as well as you could. 

Trust me. 

So I arrive at your place of business with an expertise in communication and years of experience delivering engaging content to a wide variety of audiences. 

I start by observing you over the course of one to three meetings or training sessions. I conduct pre and post meeting interviews with you in order to better understand your planning and reflection process. I interview the attendees of your presentations in order to determine how they honestly feel about your presentation skills. After I have gathered data on your strengths and weaknesses as a presenter, we go to work.

I critique. I teach. I model. I assist in planning. We establish guidelines specific to your organization and the kinds of meetings that you conduct. I assist in the development of realistic, targeted reflection. I continue to observe you as you conduct additional meetings and training sessions. I continue to critique. I reteach. I tweak. 

In the end, you are a better presenter. Your meetings are more productive and appreciated by your subordinates.

That’s my pitch. That’s my guarantee.

Hire me now and you’ll get me on the cheap.

Wait too long and you’ll pay more.

Either way, I’m worth it.

And on a side not, yes, I apparently have a large ego as well. But it’s not fragile in the least. It is battered and bruised on a daily basis. I feel good about myself and my abilities, but I accept criticism openly and without vindictiveness.

Remember: I’m the guy who publishes an annual list of flaws and shortcomings and invite friends, family and strangers to contribute to it.

If that’s not a sign of a lack of fragility, I don’t know what is.

The MRI boutique: My next great business idea. Who wants to be my first investor?

New business idea:

A shop where you can get an MRI scan at any time.

 

I’ve written before about the frequency in which people seem to go to the doctor for a small problem, only to discover a life threatening problem in the nick of time.

One of the classic examples:

A spectator is hit in the head with a golf ball at a PGA event, and during his examination by paramedics, a lump in his throat is found which turns out to be thyroid cancer. The man has no idea that he even had a lump in his throat, and as a result, it is likely that the cancer would have spread before he even knew that there was something wrong.

This really happened.

As a person who fears death (and you should to), the idea that I could have something growing in me that will ultimately kill me with no means of detecting it unless I’m hot by a bus and stricken with pneumonia bothers me a great deal.

How many lives could be saved with early detection?

Enter the MRI boutique.

For a fee, you can receive a full body scan and analysis of the film at any time. Enjoy the peace of mind of a weekly, a monthly, or a biannual scan of your body, without having to be struck by a golf ball or needing to see a doctor for any other reason.

You don’t even need to tell your doctor that you’re getting the scan. No prescription required. Scan yourself as often as you’d like. No questions asked.

This may seem excessive and unlikely to detect problems in the vast majority of customers, but when it comes to your life, why not be excessively cautious? You’ve only got one.

Why not take care of it by any means possible?

The MRI boutique. My next great business idea.

Who wants to invest?

A simple declaration and a smidgen of self confidence can launch a business and change your life. Just look at my mother-in-law.

Yesterday I barged into a friend’s office and told her to launch a new business. I’ll refrain (for now) from telling you what this business is and what she will be doing, but it’s a no-brainer in terms of profitability. She’s perfectly (and almost uniquely) qualified for the job, will earn a lot of money doing it, and will help many people in the process.

It’s also a business that doesn’t really exist in the world at this moment, and it solves an enormous problem.

She’s going to be an great success with hard work and a little luck.

To my surprise, she seemed agreeable. Excited, even. She asked some questions about taking a class at a local college or becoming licensed, but I pushed back on those ideas and every other question that might delay her launch.

“No,,” I said. “You’re just going to start. Buy some business cards, declare yourself open for business, and find your first client.”

Too many people spend far too much time talking and planning and strategizing about doing something instead of just doing it.

Eighteen years ago my best friend called me and asked me if I wanted to become a wedding DJ and launch a company with him. I had no experience in the DJ industry. No equipment. No music. No knowledge of music outside of a few, not exactly wedding-friendly genres. I’d only been to a handful of weddings in my entire life and didn’t know how a wedding was supposed to be run. I had no training. No mentor. No experience.

My friend was in an identical position, but we didn’t worry about these obstacles. Didn’t look for training or seek out a mentor. We declared ourselves wedding DJs, and six months later, we were working at our first wedding. Since then, we have performed at almost 400 weddings and about 100 other events in five five different states.

One moment I wasn’t a DJ, and the next moment I was. It didn’t happen via a complex process or specialized training. It was a simple declaration.

I followed a similar path in becoming a minister, a life coach, and a teacher of storytelling. One day I simply declared myself to be these things, and just like that, I was.

My mother-in-law has done something very similar. Years ago, she began selling merchandise on eBay. She started by raiding her own closet, looking to convert handbags into cash (so she could buy new handbags), but as women began purchasing the unused item in her closet, they began asking if she would be willing to sell the handbags and clothing in their closets as well.

A business was born.

She soon found herself selling thousands of dollars of merchandise on consignment for other women. Before she knew it, she had a growing stable of clients. 

For years now, she has been selling high-end clothing, accessories, and jewelry online. It has grown into a successful, profitable business and her primary source of income, despite the fact that she was forced to work on a dial-up modem for years.

Her husband eventually came onboard as well, constructing a photography studio in their basement where he shoots images of the merchandise. He has since transformed himself into a professional photographer whose images are so good that customers have accused them of using stock photos rather than actual photos of the merchandise.

Their home has become a warehouse of merchandise from clients from around the world, and my mother-in-law is now a top seller on eBay.

Just this week, she opened her own online store called Babsy’s Closet.

Barbara knew nothing about online sales when she launched this business. She wasn’t an expert on the Internet or even technology. One day she wasn’t an online retailer and the next moment she was. She didn’t take a college class or go to work for another online retailer to learn the ropes. She simply declared herself to be in business, and she was.

My hope is that I will be telling you about my friend’s exciting new business soon, and that you will be recommending her to your friends and family as the need arises.

I suspect I will. She seems excited. I think she sees the possibilities. I know that she is passionate about the subject.

I just hope that she moves quickly. Doesn’t delay. Declares herself in business soon, if she hasn’t done so in her mind already.

There is so much delay in this world. So much calculation and uncertainty.  

While there is certainly a time for strategizing and consideration, many times rapid action and on-the-job training is just as good, if not better.

Brave and bold often defeats cautious and calculating.

3 most important rules of the thank you note

TIME assets that the thank you notecard is not dead.

No duh.

That said, quite a few people are small minded and idiotic when it comes to thank you notes. Here are three simple rules that should be remembered at all times. 

1. The heartfelt thank you note is a beautiful thing.
2. The expectation of a thank you note is a petty and stupid thing.
3. Gossiping about the absence of an expected thank you note is a vile and thoroughly disgusting thing.

This is not the first time I have written about the tyranny of the thank you note.

I have proposed the Matthew Dicks Law of Thank You Notes before.

I’ve supported the thank you note send via email.

I’ve proposed solutions to dealing with thank you note Nazis.

I’ve even written about rules 2 and 3 before in the context of my birthday.

They are all valid arguments, but when in doubt, stick to the 3 rules and you can’t go wrong.

My possibly petulant “I told you so” climate change Kickstarter idea: I need your feedback. Am I an idiot?

Earlier in the week, I wrote about the sound byte being used by Republicans in response to questions about the existence of climate change:

“I’m not a scientist.”

Variations of this ridiculous statement include:

“The science isn’t all there yet.”

“I’ve heard arguments from both sides of the scientific aisle.”

House Speaker John Boehner: “Listen, I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change. But I am astute enough to understand that every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs.”

Here’s the thing:

When a politician tells us that he does not believe in climate change or does not accept that climate change is the result of human activity or can’t be certain enough about the science to take action, he or she is either lying or stupid. The science is simply too overwhelmingly in favor of manmade climate change for anyone with half a brain to deny it.

The latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) — a massive international effort to synthesized scientific knowledge on climate change from around the world — concluded with 95 percent certainty that the vast majority of the rise in global temperatures observed since the 1950s has been man-made. (Ninety-five percent is the same certainty that scientists assign to the assertion that cigarettes kill.)

It’s simply become impossible to deny climate change, which is why this “I am not a scientist” sound byte has come into fashion. Claim a lack of expertise and training and you don’t have to take a stand.

Convenient. Stupid but convenient. 

More than likely, these “I am not a scientist”  politicians are receiving campaign contribution from oil, coal, or natural gas companies and do not want that funding to dry up.

The largest contributors to John Boehner’s campaign, for example, are gas and oil companies.

But even those of us being paid by the fossil fuel companies to keep silent or plead ignorance know that climate change is real, and in the not-too-distant future, when sea levels rise to the point that the map begins to change and once valuable real estate is underwater, denying it will be even more difficult.

There will come a day when man made climate change will be undeniable by even the most ardent fossil fuel advocates.

My fear is that the politicians who are denying the existence of manmade climate change today will be forgotten tomorrow. Thanks to the short memories of the American people and the disregard for history, these men and women lie with impunity, knowing that they will no longer be in office and will probably be dead by the time large portions of southern Florida are underwater.

They are relying on the fact that history can be slippery and forgetful.

Ask an average American how many US Presidents have been assassinated while in office, and he or she will likely say two.

Just imagine: Two United States Presidents were murdered while in office after Lincoln’s assassination, and they have been all but forgotten.

 

What does John Boehner have to fear when he lies about climate change? Who will ever remember his lies in light of everything else that is forgotten.

But in the not-to-distant future, my children, or perhaps my children’s children, will ask me what the hell we were doing when there was still time to reduce CO2 levels, impose a carbon tax, and make serious investments in green energy. They will want to know why we fiddled while Rome burned, and I want to be able to name names. I want to be able to tell them the names of the liars who took no action and impeded the action of others in the face of over whelming scientific evidence. I want those names etched in history.

So my Kickstarter idea:

I’d like to publish a book entitled:

United States Politicians in 2015 Who Denied the Existence of Manmade Climate Change Despite Overwhelming and Undeniable Scientific Evidence in Order to Further Their Political Careers At the Expense of Future Generations

Each page of this book will feature one of the politicians and their exact words in response to questions about climate change.

That’s it. Lying politicians and their exact words.

I’d like to print one billion of these books, to ensure that physical copies will exist for future historians, but one billion may be a little unrealistic. But I’d like to convince as many people as possible to purchase this book, and to also have the book logged in the United States Library of Congress.

I want people to place this book, which would be handsomely bound, on their family’s bookshelf alongside their copies of The Bible and Huckleberry Finn. I want this book to become a family heirloom. Something passed down from generation to generation.

I want this book read when a father explains to a son that the Des Moines Dolphins were once known as the Miami Dolphins, before Miami was underwater.  

Ideally, I’d love to see a granite monument with these politician's names etched into its side, added to yearly like the Stanley Cup, but I’m an author and books are my thing. But if a sculpture is interested in pursuing this project, I’d be more than willing to back it as well.   

One of my stretch goals would be to have one of these books printed on a material other than paper. Something that will last a thousand years or more and be kept on display in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Maybe thin sheets of gold? Or platinum? Whatever the scientists suggest. Because I may not be a scientist, but I trust them to tell me what material makes the most sense for this project.

So my questions:

Is this a crazy idea?

Would it be ultimately pointless?

Would the Kickstarter be unsuccessful?

Is this merely my way of publishing a petulant, historical “I told you so” that will change nothing?

Would people support something like this?

Would the money be better spent supporting climate change activism or green energy research?

Should I try that monument idea even though I wouldn’t begin to know where to start?

What are your thoughts? I really want to know.

How I Function on Less Than 6 Hours of Sleep (and how you could, too)

Alexandra Damsker, CEO of Kira’s Kiss Desserts, explains how she is able to function on less than six hours of sleep.

As a person who also sleeps less than six hours every night, I utilize many of Damsker’s strategies, and I’d like to add a few of my own.

First, Damsker suggests reducing your television intake.

You sleep much better, and do much more work, when you don’t watch much TV. Your brain is actually less active watching TV than when it’s sleeping. This dullness is addictive.

I agree wholeheartedly. I watch less than an hour of television a day, and I find that the more time I spend engaged in reading, writing, conversing, playing with my kids, and exercising, the better I sleep.

Damsker also believes that her career is a contributing factor.

Most important, I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LOVE WHAT I DO. I love it so much! I am so incredibly happy that I get to do my job. I have days that suck. I have strings of days that suck. But they are just sucky days — my life is still pretty spectacularly awesome.

I also feel that same sense of excitement about what I do. Between teaching, writing, storytelling, and the handful of other vocations that fill my day, I can’t wait to get out of bed every morning and get started. I often bemoan the fact that I need to go to bed at all. I’ve been known to tell my wife that I can’t wait for the next five hours to be over so I can get going again.

Once or twice a week I reverse nap for this very reason.

I don’t know many people who look forward to their days with as much enthusiasm. If you don’t love what you do, then do something about it. Make a plan. Set a goal. Begin the process of changing your life.   

I also have a few suggestions of my own:

1. Spend your time in bed sleeping and nothing more. When I climb into bed every night, I am asleep within a minute or two, and when I awake (usually on my own but sometimes with the help of a pet or an alarm), I am out of bed almost immediately.

The amount of time people spend lounging in bed in half-conscious states of unproductive slumber or (even worse) watching television is astounding. Oftentimes they will include this non-sleep time in their total amount of sleep, bringing five or six actual hours of sleep a lot closer to seven or eight perceived hours of sleep. But the number of hours spent in bed is not the same as the number of hours spent sleeping. The goal should be to spend nearly every minute in bed in meaningful, productive sleep.

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2. Exercise regularly. As counterintuitive as it may seem, the more I exercise, the more energy I have and the less sleep I appear to need. A sedentary lifestyle results in the need for more sleep. 

And if you're experiencing an energy slump or feeling sluggish, exercise.

Go for a 15 minute run. Do push ups and sit ups. Do something to increase your heart rate for a sustained period of time. A 15 minute run at 8:00 PM will often sustain me until midnight or later with ease.

3. Train yourself to fall asleep quickly. The quicker, the better. Be a productive sleeper. Treat the time you spend in bed as a precious commodity. If I spend five hours in bed, I spent almost every minute of that time in sleep. If you have to sleep, at least make it worth your time.

It sounds fairly obvious, but I think it’s often overlooked:

It’s much easier to function on less sleep when you actually spend your time in bed sleeping. To this end, a few strategies to help you fall asleep faster and remain asleep throughout the night:

• When I was a boy, I had a difficult time falling asleep, so I developed a routine to relax each part of my body, beginning at my toes and moving up to my head. I can do this automatically today, and it helps me fall asleep much faster.
• This process has also made me aware of the two places on my body (my hands and my jaw) where I are likely to still be tense when I lay down, so I purposefully relax those two places as soon as the light is turned out. Find your centers of tension and learn to relax them as quickly as possible.
• Awaken at the same time every day. I may go to sleep at 11:30 or 1:30 or 3:30 depending on what I am doing, but I awaken at the same time almost every day. Most of the time, I wake up without the assistance of an alarm clock, and rarely do I awaken not feeling refreshed. It's only when I sleep late - usually because I have arrived home and gone to bed so excessively late - that I feel sluggish the next day. I firmly believe that it's better to sleep four hours and wake up at your regular time than sleep six hours and awaken later than normal.
• Don't sleep later on the weekends and holidays. It only serves to confuse your body and make sleep times less certain. Consistency is key.  
• Use a white noise machine to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. Even if you don’t think you need one, the white noise will serve as a trigger to your body that it’s time to sleep, and you will fall asleep faster. It will also filter out any sounds in the night that might awaken you unnecessarily.
• Don't eat before bed. I eat almost nothing after dinner. If your body is digesting recently eaten food, it will be more difficult to fall into a restful sleep. 
• I’ve always been able to clear my mind fairly quickly, but since I began meditating in the mornings, this ability has increased exponentially. Many people have trouble falling asleep because they cannot quiet their minds. Learn to quiet your mind through meditation.
• When your alarm goes off, get your ass out of bed immediately. Start your day. Find a reason to want to get up (love your life) and create a routine that you enjoy. For me, my morning routine includes reading, writing, sitting with my dog and taking her for a walk, doing pushups and sit-ups, meditating, sweeping the kitchen floor, listening for my children to wake up, and eating an Egg McMuffin. All before 7:00. All before most people are awake.
• Hate sleep.

This may be the least helpful bit of advice, but if you love to sleep, it will be hard for you to sleep less than six hours unless it's a necessity. And if you love sleep, then sleeping less than six hours a night is probably a bad idea. Do what you love.

But if you want to sleep less, learn to I despise sleep.

I believe that human beings' need to sleep is their greatest weakness, and I've been saying that since I was a teenager. Sleep interferes with all of the things I want to do and accomplish in life. Sleep is time stolen from me. An interruption in the flow of my day. It resembles death in a way that makes me entirely too uncomfortable.  

I can't stand going to bed every night.

It’s become popular amongst some of my friends to scoff at my five hours of sleep and worry about my future health. In response to these concerns, I offer the following:

Science has proven that a small segment of the population are genetically predisposed to needing to sleep less. This predisposition seems to run in families. Since I have rarely slept more than 5-6 hours for my entire life, and since my brother and sister are also extremely short sleepers, I may be one of these genetic mutants. 

Alexandra Damsker may be as well.

So I may have an unfair advantage over most people.

Even if it’s not genetic, I ask these naysayers and detractors a simple question:

Do I ever seem tired? Lethargic? Do you think that the quality of my work is suffering due to my lack of sleep? Am I not accomplishing enough because of my need for rest? Am I short tempered? Prone to depression? Abusing drugs or alcohol?

If you were to pick ten people from your life who appear chronically tired or fatigued, would I make the list?

Would my name have even popped up in your mind?

I don’t think so. It’s convenient to think that sleeping as little as I do is somehow hurting my productivity or turning my days into fatigue-riddled disasters, but it’s simply not the case. 

Here’s the real problem with all of this advice that Damsker and I offer:

Following it will require people to watch less television, cease snacking in the evening, exercise more often, learn to meditate, and make changes in their careers that will require great effort, long term planning, patience, and enormous sacrifices.

I do not know many people who would be willing to make these changes in their lives.

I sleep as much as my body wants me to sleep. But I also believe that most people could be sleeping less. By avoiding wasted time in bed and by making a concerted effort to awaken one hour earlier than usual, I think most people could shave at least an hour of their sleep each night. 

Last year a friend asked me how to be more productive. She had just had her second child and felt like she was never getting anything done. I told her to wake up an hour earlier than normal each morning and use that hour as productively as possible. "Give it a week," I advised. "See what happens." 

A few weeks later, my friend posted a public thank you on Facebook, telling her network that she had taken my advice and had accomplished so much in the hours she had recaptured and felt no negative impacts to her loss of sleep.

That was more than a year ago. She has continued to sustain the change and remains happy about it.

You could probably do the same if you're sleeping eight or more hours every night.  

Give it a week. See what happens.

The vastly underutilized “You told me so.”

As I’ve made clear, I am an enormous fan of the “I told you so,” going to far as to have an “I told you do” calendar.

What I would like to see is more of the reverse “I told you so.”

For example, about ten years ago one of my friends began having children. As he talked about fatherhood, he described the frustration of having his children climbing into his bed all the time, essentially kicking him out. He told me how long it took to extricate his infant children from his bedroom and how there were weeks when at least one and sometimes more of his kids spent the night crowding him out of his bed.

I told him at the time that when I had kids, they would never sleep in my bed, and I would be sure that my infant children were in their own rooms as quickly as possible.

He scoffed at these notions. Told me that I was clueless. Laughed at my stupidity.

Fast forward ten years. I have a five year-old daughter and a two year-old son. Both were sleeping in their own bedrooms a few months after being born, and neither sleeps or has ever slept in our bed.

In fact, when we tried to convince our daughter to sleep in our bed after a head injury required me to check on her every hour, she refused.

My friend recently asked me how the sleeping turned out. He asked with a smirk on his face, expecting that his claims about my cluelessness and stupidity would be validated at last.

I told him about my kids. I told him that neither child has ever slept in our bed. I told him that both children were sleeping in their own rooms well before their sixth month. I told him that I had never been kicked out of my bed by my children. Not once. 

His smirk slid off his face. He said, “I’m surprised.”

That’s all he said.

After enjoying a decade of self-assurance and self-righteousness, all I received was an “I’m surprised.”

What I wanted to hear was something along the lines of, “It turns out that you were right.” Or “I guess I was the one who was clueless and stupid after all.” Or “I wish I could be more like Matthew Dicks and less like me.”

Or simply, “You told me so.”

The reverse “I told you so.”

The words that one should offer when you discover that you weren’t so smart after all.

Let’s all embrace this concept.

People will still try to destroy you.

In my experience, this may be true, but it doesn’t mean that you are safe.

Fools and extremists may attempt to destroy you anyway.

11 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20

Author Shelli Johnson posted a list entitled 10 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. 

As such, I was inspired to write my own list.

Unlike Johnson, who was 25 when she wrote her list, I am more than two decades away from 20 and perhaps have greater perspective on the issue.

I may have also forgotten what it’s like to be 20, but I don’t think so. It seems like just yesterday.

I also tried to write my list with enough clarity and specificity so as to not require any additional explanation. Please let me know if you’d like me to be more specific. 

My list is also 11 items long because round numbered lists like a list of 10 can’t be trusted. Either something was added to the list that isn’t worthy to bring it to the round number or a relevant item was removed from the list for the sake of the round number.  

Never trust round numbers.

11 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20

1. Time and money are obstacles easily overcome with long days, hard work, and a clear vision.
2. People will die before you ever expect them to. Stay connected.
3. Every problem has a lifespan shorter than your own.
4. Find your voice. Don’t wait to stumble upon it.
5. Have sex more often.
6. Move fast and without fear. Seize opportunities and experiment often.
7. Never allow yourself to be interrogated by police officers without an attorney present.
8. The way that you win an argument is more important than actually winning the argument.
9. Being known for your kindness is more important than being known for your cleverness.
10. Write everyday without exception.
11. It’s better to look stupid than to not ask a question.

Don’t say goodbye to the bride and groom. Just leave. Let it be your final gift to them.

Slate’s Seth Stevenson argues in favor of not saying goodbye.

Ghosting—aka the Irish goodbye, the French exit, and any number of other vaguely ethnophobic terms—refers to leaving a social gathering without saying your farewells. One moment you’re at the bar, or the house party, or the Sunday morning wedding brunch. The next moment you’re gone. In the manner of a ghost. “Where’d he go?” your friends might wonder. But—and this is key—they probably won’t even notice that you’ve left.

I am an enormous fan of ghosting. My wife, however, would never allow it. My wife’s goodbye ritual takes at least 20 minutes and includes the scheduling of at least one future social engagement and engaging in at least one conversation on an entirely new topic before the farewell is complete.

For me, ghosting will never be a reality. Nor will it be for most people. Social conventions are incredibly difficult to change, and they are even more difficult to ignore for the vast majority of people.

It takes a special kind of arrogant rule breaker to ghost on a consistent basis.

But there is one social engagement where ghosting shouldn’t even be an option. It should be standard practice:

A wedding.

As a wedding DJ with almost two decades of experience, I believe that ghosting at a wedding is not only acceptable but represents an act of kindness and generosity toward the bride and groom.

Every weekend, I watch as brides and grooms are pulled off the dance floor during one of their favorite songs by friends or family members who feel the need to exchange idle, meaningless, and soon-to-be-forgotten pleasantries before saying goodbye.

Don’t do it. Just leave.

Consider the numbers:

If there are 150 people attending the wedding (an average number of guests for the weddings that I do), that means that the bride and groom will need to say goodbye to approximately 75 couples.

In the course of a five hour reception (also the average), that amounts to a goodbye every four minutes.

Since most guests don’t start leaving four minutes into the reception, what it really means is a constant stream of goodbyes during the last two hours of the reception, when the bride and groom are supposed to be dancing with friends and family and having the most fun.

Years ago, I would make an announcement with about 15 minutes left in the wedding imploring guests to join the bride and groom on the dance floor and stay for the last few songs so the bride and groom could enjoy them in peace.

“Don’t make the bride and groom spend the last few precious moments of their wedding saying goodbye to you.”

The announcement rarely had any impact on the selfish jackasses who thought that leaving 15 minutes early was more important than the happiness and enjoyment of a bride and groom on their wedding day, so I stopped making it.

But if there was ever a social event to ghost, it’s a wedding. The bride and groom will never remember who did and didn’t say goodbye to, nor will it matter to them.

I promise you: There has never been a bride or groom in the history of the universe who were concerned with saying goodbye to their guests in the midst of their reception.

If saying goodbye is important to you, stay until the end. Wait for the music to stop and the lights to come up. Then say goodbye.

Otherwise, just leave, damn it. Let the happy couple be happy.

My new startup idea: Rate My Parents

You’ve probably heard of Rate My Professors and Rate My Teachers.

 

I’m thinking of launching a new startup:

Rate My Parents

Go online and rate you parents in a number of pertinent categories. Rate My Professors and Rate My Teachers use the following three criteria:

• Helpfulness
• Clarity
• Easiness

These are fine criteria, but I would be inclined to add the following:

• Ability to mind their own business
• Amount of meddling in personal affairs
• Level of general disappoint in my life choices
• Availability to babysit on a moment’s notice
• Degree of passive-aggressiveness
• Number of phone calls required per month

The weakness of this idea, I will admit, is its utility. Rate My Teachers and Rate My Professors offer value. If I’m trying to decide if I should take a specific class, information about the teacher or professor would be helpful, but it’s difficult to imagine many scenarios in which you would need information on someone else’s parents.

Maybe if you’re looking to date someone, you might want to know if his or her parents would make good in-laws.

Or if you’re an orphan about to be adopted by a couple who already has children, a parental rating might help you decide if you should act like a little monster during the first home visit.

But in the case of prospective in-laws, a savvy user would always rate his or her parents high in order to present the perception of positive future in-laws.

And the orphan market seems a little thin to support an actual business plan.

So why create a website like Rate My Parent?

Spite.

While Rate My Teacher and Rate My Professor provide a useful service, they also exist to allow students to enact a small measure of revenge upon educators who have made their lives difficult.

I say that it’s time to do the same with parents.

• Let the world know how your parents still don’t approve of our choice of spouse even after ten years of blissful marriage.
• Describe their attempts to make you feel guilty for skipping a second cousin’s wedding or choosing to spend Thanksgiving with friends instead of them.
• Post about their ludicrous and inane attempts to influence your choice of baby name.
• Discuss their insistence that you marry within the faith or choose a pre-approved career path.
• Discuss the pressure that they are applying in the realm of reproduction
• Describe their closeted racism or homophobia in detail.

Your efforts are unlikely to assist anyone in better decision making or make my startup successful enough for me to retire, but sometimes mouthing off just feels good.

Sometimes spite is the best reason to do anything.  

Hack a friend’s Facebook profile. Have fun and do some good all at the same time.

I have a friend who does not passcode protect her phone. I don’t passcode protect mine, either. I feel like anyone who needs a passcode on their phone is hiding something, and I simply don’t have time for it. So I don’t blame my friend for her lack of security.

In fact, I love it.

Whenever she leaves her phone behind, in a meeting, in her classroom, or even at the table for a minute or two, I grab it and begin to change her Facebook settings.

I change her relationship status from Engaged to It’s Complicated.

I change her birthday so she receives the barrage of birthday messages on the wrong day.

Your Facebook profile has a spot for your favorite quote. I once posted a quote about myself in her profile, and it took her more than a year to notice it.

It’s annoying as hell for her.

It’s funny as hell for me.

She’s not the only person I have done this to. I have hacked the Facebook profiles of two others, but they don’t know that I have done it yet. I have buried odd and embarrassing information in their Facebook profiles that they have yet to see.

It makes me so happy.

I mentioned this prank on Twitter over the weekend in a response to a comment about Facebook relationship statuses and received an enormous response from admiring and appreciative followers who never thought of pulling off a prank like this.

I was happy to help.

So go forth. Add a favorite quote to your friend’s Facebook profile. Change a religious affiliation. Assign a friend a February 29 birthday. Add a prison to the places where your friend once lived. Change a relationship status.

In the most recent case, changing my my friend’s relationship status from Engaged to It’s Complicated worked out well. When she reverted her status back to Engaged, it appeared in her friends’ feed again, and many, who failed to notice the change before, suddenly became aware of her pending nuptials. She received a barrage of congratulatory messages as a result. 

I was actually doing her a favor. And having fun in the process.

I bet that she’s secretly happy that I did it.

Conscientiousness is the most important trait. This may explain how I manage to overcome the absence of so many others.

Great news. Research is pointing to conscientiousness as the one-trait-to-rule-them-all in terms of future success, both career-wise and personal.

How do the researchers define conscientiousness?

Basically, it’s being “efficient, organized, neat, and systematic.” It’s a trait that has been shown to increase your chances of finding a job, living longer, and living healthier. It is also strongly correlated with longer marriages and greater money and job satisfaction. 

“It would actually be nice if there were some negative things that went along with conscientiousness,” researcher John Roberts said. ‘But at this point it’s emerging as one of the primary dimensions of successful functioning across the lifespan. It really goes cradle to grave in terms of how people do.”

I’m pretty excited about this finding.

“Efficient, organized, neat, and systematic.”

That’s me. Four words couldn’t describe me better.

If I’m wrong, I’m sure I’ll hear about it in the comments.

Perhaps it’s this trait that counteracts all of my flaws and shortcomings, as well as the multitude of traits that I lack, including:

• attention to detail
• restraint
• tact
• humility
• caution
• charm
• respect for authority
• moderation
• mechanical aptitude
• a decent golf swing

Death helps. Steve Jobs knew this, and unlike me, he didn’t need to die in order to learn it.

Nine minutes into his famous Stanford commencement speech, Steve Jobs discussed the importance he placed on thinking about death during life:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

The only difference between Steve Jobs’ view on death and my own is that Jobs came to this understanding at the age of seventeen after reading a quote.

It took me two near death experiences (Death #1 and Death #2) and a gun to the head and a trigger being pulled to bring me to the same understanding.

Jobs path to this bit of wisdom seems a little easier and a lot smarter.

I meet people everyday who can’t understand the way that my ongoing existential crisis and my obsession with death motivate me. They can’t begin to understand how someone can be so focused on the idea of mortality for so much of their day to day life. Nor would they ever want such a burden.

But it’s not their fault.

The ability to constantly remember that you will be dead soon apparently requires that you be as brilliant as Steve Jobs or as unlucky as me.

Both of these are conditions not easily achieved. It makes me wonder if the advice that Jobs gives is worthwhile.

A former life coach client once told me that he’s known two near-death survivors in his life. Me and one of his friends. He said that the two of us are alike in so many ways. The way we talk about goals. The way we try to maximize our minutes. The things we choose to ignore and disregard in favor of things that matter. The systems and routines that we create to increase efficiency and productivity. Our levels of self confidence.   

“Even the way the two of you walk through a crowd is the same.”

I say that I am unlucky, and it’s hard to argue otherwise. But I wonder where I would be today had a bee, a Mercedes, and three armed men not tried to kill me.

I’m just not as smart as Steve Jobs. A little bit of death, spread out over the course of a decade, might have been just what someone like me needed to get ahead.

I wouldn’t wish my past on anyone, but I’m not sure that if given the chance I would change a thing.

While my son was joyously climbing aboard fire engines and tractors, my daughter and I were engulfed in tragedy and heartache.

My son loved Touch-a-Truck. There were dozens of trucks to climb onto and into and around.

It was his own personal nirvana.

    

My daughter loved Touch-a-Truck for about 30 minutes and then spent the rest of the day riding around in the stroller.

She was a bit of a pill that day. Complaining. Whining. Disinterested. Wanting to go home. The stroller was the only thing that appeased her.

It transformed her from annoying to blissful.

And while she looked a little ridiculous stuffed inside, I kind of loved it, too.

Clara won’t fit in the stroller for much longer. She barely fits now. Before I know it, my days of pushing my little girl around fairgrounds and zoos and amusement parks will be over, and I will yearn for a time when that is not true.

In fact, that day at Touch-a-Truck may have been the last time that my daughter ever climbs into our stroller again. It may have been the last time that I ever get to push my little girl around. I try to be cognizant of those possible last moments. I try to remain aware of the tragedy of time so these occasions don’t pass by unnoticed and unmarked.  

I thought about all of this and more as I pushed my daughter around those trucks and tractors and rally cars that day. I tried to soak it all in. Capture every moment in my mind. Record every detail. Live in the moment.

I tried not to be sad about the fact that my little girl isn’t so little anymore.

 

At last I have a plan for old age

When I was young, I played a lot of video games. I started on an Atari 2600 and eventually moved onto an Atari 5200, a Nintendo, PC gaming, online gaming, and a great many coin-operated arcade games.

I stopped playing video games about ten years ago, opting instead to use my time to write, read, play golf and poker, and do other things. Now that I have kids, my desire to play has waned considerably.

If given the choice of playing with Clara and Charlie or some nonexistent enemy on a computer screen, I choose my children every time.

But I didn’t stop loving video games. I just found better and equally enjoyable ways of being productive. But I’ve often thought about when and if I will play video games again.

Now I know. 

Author Dan Kennedy said something on stage recently while hosting a Moth StorySLAM in New York. I can’t remember why it came up, but he said that his plan for old age is to play video games. He said it facetiously (I think) and made a joke about it before moving on, but I found myself sitting there, thinking, “Yes. That could be my plan for old age. Play lots and lots of video games.”

I have no intention of every growing old or dying, but there may come a time when I have to slow down a bit. When I have more time on my hands. When the desire to sit slightly more often overtakes me.

When that happens, video games will be waiting for me.

It’s brilliant.

At last I have a plan for my late nineties and early hundreds.

Call of Duty 56.

I can’t wait.

What is the best way to invest one dollar?

Melissa Batchelor Warnke of The Morning News asks: Say you had a buck in your hand: What would be the best way to invest it?

The piece features answers by two dozen people—a JP Morgan associate, a sex worker, a pastor, a living statue, a marine, and many more.

There are some great answers. My favorites come from the professional escort and the founder of DreamNow.

There are some stupid answers, too.

I’ve been struggling with three possible answers to this question, but after much internal debate, I have finally settled on one.

My runners-up include:

• Take my children to a penny candy shop. Allow them to purchase as much candy as possible. Walk to a park and devour the candy while we play.
• Find a company where I would love to work. Ideally a startup of some kind in a field that intrigues me. Call the CEO, the human resources director, or whoever else is responsible for hiring. Offer to buy them a cup of coffee in exchange for 30 minutes of their time. Attempt to win them over and land a job.

But my winning answer is this:

Purchase a notebook. Begin writing my next novel.

My wife’s answer was also excellent.

Download a song that is guaranteed to make me happy regardless of  the circumstance or the number of times played.

Apparently there are two such songs:

Van Halen’s Jump and Hall & Oates You Make My Dreams Come True.

She’s worried about her husband’s diapers. She should be more worried about her child’s early morning routine.

Slate’s Dear Prudence answers a question from a reader whose husband is a lifelong bed wetter who wears a diaper and rubber pants to bed each night. The reader is worried about the possibility of her children discovering their father’s secret and wants to know if they should be proactive and tell the kids before they find out for themselves.

First, let me say that this woman deserves a great deal of credit and at least a nomination for Spouse of the Year. While it’s true that if you love your spouse, this would not be a deal breaker, but they way in which she has accepted and even embraced the situation is remarkable.

She writes:

We are both completely comfortable with his bed-wetting and diapers and it’s actually fun getting him ready for bed. I took over getting him diapered and its really made us closer.

This is a woman who you hold onto at all costs.

The thing that Emily Yoffe rarely does in her role as Prudence is comment on issues other than those specifically addressed in the letters she receives. While I have no quibble with the advice that she offers this woman (it’s a private matter that only needs to be explained if discovered), I can’t help but think that the most important sentence in the letter (that Yoffe ignores) is this:

So far, the 8-year-old has not discovered the secret, but routinely comes to our room at 4 a.m. after waking up.

This is the real problem. Your eight year-old should not be routinely waking up at 4:00 every morning (this coming from a person routinely awake at 4:00 every morning), and he absolutely, positively shouldn’t be coming into his parents’ room at that hour.

While we can’t control the time that our children wake up (I’ve tried), we can avoid rewarding them for waking up early by insisting that they remain in their own bedrooms and not disturb our sleep.

At three years-old, this is admittedly hard, and possibly impossible.

At five years-old, it’s probably still difficult.

But an eight year-old can be stopped. An eight year-old has reached the age of reason. An eight year-old understands consequences. An eight year-old can and should be stopped.

Forget your concerns about your husband’s diapers. Your child is not sleeping enough and is being rewarded for waking up too early. He is disturbing your sleep, as well, which is no less precious,

Sometimes the perceived problem and the real problem are two entirely different things.

“Where do you get your ideas?” is an understandable but impossible-to-answer question for authors. But “Nuns at Scout camp” will be one of my answers someday.

I’m often asked where I get my ideas for books, which is an understandable but impossible question to answer.

There is no well of ideas. There is no secret formula. There is no one answer to that question, as much as fledgling writers seem to want there to be.

Simply put, I hear something. I read something. I see something. The flicker of an idea is born.

Something Missing was born from a conversation with a friend over dinner about a missing earring.

Unexpectedly, Milo began with a memory from my fourth grade classroom.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend was born from a conversation with a friend and colleague while monitoring students at recess.

My upcoming novel, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, originated with a story that my wife told me about her childhood just before falling asleep.

My unpublished novel, Chicken Shack, began with a dare.

All of these are simplifications of the actual origins of these novels. There are more complex stories behind the origin of each book. In all cases, additional ideas were grafted onto the original idea to create a more complex story.

But in terms of the initial spark, that was how each story began.

Which leads me to this poster, which is displayed in the Yawgoog Heritage Museum at Yawgoog Scout Reservation, the camp where I spent many of my boyhood summers.

I suspect that someday in the future, this poster will be added to the list of initial sparks for one of my novels.

A nun’s day at a Scout camp? How could this not be the basis for a novel?

When it comes of purposeful procrastination, Mark Twain agreed with me. I can’t be nearly as stupid as people think.

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” – Mark Twain

I have a policy wherein I never complete mundane or unnecessary assignments until the moment before they are due, because if this is the last day of my life, I would hate to have spent it completing paperwork that was due next week.

People often scoff at this policy, usually for one of three reasons:

1. They think that attempting to live each day as if it were your last is foolish.
2. They obsessively complete tasks as quickly as possible and can’t imagine doing otherwise.
3. They think that I’m simply making excuses for procrastination or laziness.

It appears that Mark Twain would’ve agreed with me, and he’s a lot smarter than any of my critics.