I know the last post comes off like a teen girl creating a cryptic Facebook message in order to get attention. That’s not my intent so I want to expand into what I’m trying to get across with more clarity (which will fail).

I wrote a post last Thursday about all of the people I met in New Orleans. It was straight to the punch about how I felt in various situations, with various people whether they be a cab driver, a bartender, or some girl I was trying to pick up. Now as I was writing how I felt about each situation, I was getting a feel for how I view people in general. When it got down to me sharing the post, I didn’t want to post it. Not because any of the people in the post read rnningfool (that’s a joke, we know they all do), but because I’m sharing how my outlook on life is and it’s going to be different than yours. My mission is not to make you think like me. You don’t want to think like me. You want to think like you and I felt that I was throwing some influence out onto this site and that’s not what its about.

So after I created that draft I took a step back and started to not feel pressured to post because I haven’t posted in a while. I’m still not sure what I want to share exactly as this blog continues to evolve, and I continue to improve the content (at least I think so). That last post had nothing to do with you. That’s not a specific you (aka Luke’s blog), it’s literally you sitting there (anyone who reads it). I’m not certain people do think like that, but I’ve started going through life by thinking that every single person only thinks about themselves. Perfectly normal.

This blog deals with my place in what’s revolving around me and the song “Once In A Lifetime” by the Talking Heads keeps coming up. “How Did I Get Here?” My journey is going to be different than yours and that’s the way it should be. You only get one crack at it and we all see it differently and there isn’t any best choice. I guess I felt like this blog had the ability to start getting too preachy and I don’t want that.

So that’s where I’m coming from and I hope people keep checking in.

It’s been about 10 days since I’ve posted. I was away for 2+ of them in New Orleans, and the rest was a needed break. I’ll be heading away to Europe on the 20th and not returning until the end of the month. I may go the entire month without blogging. Why you may ask?

I’ve been using the honest approach and it’s debilitating for lack of a better word. You sense when people aren’t being honest. You can’t understand why you’re telling someone a thought that you’re most likely not sharing otherwise. Relationships start becoming he said she said and the truth hurts. Combine that with the reality of how my life is going and I don’t know how to explain how I feel. How can I share the truth when I’m on some wavelength and someone else is on a completely, wildly different one? No one said life was going to be easy, and in order to get better at it you have to continue taking steps forward, and I’m pretty sure this one is one of my most challenging.

I understand that you aren’t going to be able to relate to this post. You don’t know what my life is like and what my issues are. I imagine most people go through sweeping issues under the table and “being happy”. I’m starting to wade through the bullshit and figure out what’s actually important to me and this is what I’m figuring out with this blog. There is nothing wrong with me. It’s the idea that you don’t know anything that throws me for a loop because how can you be honest about anything, when you no nothing?

It’s easy to be wrong in life and making predictions is pretty much how you can prove how smart you are. Unfortunately, most people are idiots and are wrong more often than they are right. I’m not sure where all these people who are right are hiding (Wall Street & Las Vegas), but they must be out there. Here are a few times I’ve incorrect.

Nick Foles – I’ve been hearing a lot of Big Dick Nick and very few Nick Folds. Before the playoffs started I was ready to call into WIP and tell them how not having a stellar QB will derail any chance the Eagles have of making the Super Bowl. I do believe that the Eagles got lucky that Stefon Diggs caught that miracle pass or else Drew Brees may have put up more of a fight than Case Keenum. As such, St. Nick was able to deliver and lead them to bowl, much to my surprise. The lesson learned is that one player does not make up an entire team in football. As the Shee says, “team game”.

Bitcoin – I was, am, a Bitcoin skeptic. Too many uncertainties surround it for me to put my money behind it…so far. I don’t like the idea of 500 million dollars being hacked from Coincheck. I don’t like that I have to use additional security to protect my investment and that if I somehow misplace my info, or someone gets it from me, I lose my entire investment. I don’t like that the currency has no actual purpose with regards to transactions. I don’t like that I’m so far out of the loop from what is going on that it feels more like a hodl and pray situation rather than investing in a company that produces a profit. Even with all of those negatives, I still think there is something to be said of a currency that uses the blockchain with a limited demand. Now whose to say that the 21 million Bitcoin is all that will ever be produced. It’s ludicrous to think that. Howeva, if that is the case, I don’t think investing in the coin, taking appropriate security measures, and waiting to see if it goes off in the future is a bad idea. How was I wrong on this? Ehh, I think it should be worth about $2,000-4,000 per Bitcoin. It has been trending that way.

Uber – When Uber first started I didn’t like the idea of getting into other people’s cars who could have just murdered their last passenger. I didn’t like how the driver’s would seemingly loop around your position for endless minutes while you stood their with your thumb up your ass. That is the expression, right? The app felt more like a thing you said you did to feel “in”. I guess I’m not necessarily surprised it caught on but I don’t quite comprehend how people make money doing it. Every Uber driver says how well they are doing and I’m not sure how that’s possible after they just spent 15 minutes making $5.65. The positives though outweigh the negatives as it literally turns any human being into having a job. I wouldn’t say that I thought it was going to fail, and it’s still not a certainty based on all the regulations, but it’s proven itself mainstream and here to stay.

Migos – I’ll start this one by saying that I have never listened to Migos. I think this is probably the worst music that has ever been created. It’s like a choppy,  lack of beat, auto-tuned, nursery rhyme, filled with curse words. Who listens to this?  Obviously a lot of people when their top song has 430 million listens.  It has to be some sort of younger generation infatuation. This is what it’s like when you get older and you start talking about the way things used to be. I’m not hip. I’m not with it. Tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a.

After reading Ray Dalio’s Principles (technically I have 75 pages left)((you see how this works)), I came away with a key concept that is “radical transparency” and “total honesty”. It means exactly what it says, you are wide open about precisely what you are thinking. You’d be surprised at how often you water down how you speak to people, or not even tell the truth. An example:

“I lost $500 in online blackjack”
Nice: You’ll get em’ next time,
Honest: Why the fuck are you playing online blackjack?

Now you’ll notice how the first option doesn’t make you come across like a douchebag. The 2nd option makes people start to question if they even want to hang around with you. That’s the beauty though, you don’t want to hang around with the people from group 2 either!

Here’s another example of when you learn if people can take it.  If I was being civil I’d ask Sam, “why haven’t you bought a bowling ball bag?” If I was being honest I’d say, “what the fuck are you waiting for?” I haven’t brought this up to Sam though because it doesn’t concern me. Being a part of my family though, I wonder why it takes 2 weeks to replace an item that is used on a weekly basis that you spilled some car oil into. It’s an indicator of initiative. Storm bag.

What’s fun is that you learn who can handle the concept and react to it with the same type of, I’ll call it humor, right back at you. Then you start to understand that you can be honest in this manner and it makes the relationship that much stronger. I’m not here to beat around the bush. I can see your fluff and I don’t like it. The question, “how are you doing” with the answer “I’m fine” is disgusting. If that’s all you’ve got, you should be happy to walk through life in a zombie like trance before you perish 6 feet under.

I know for a fact that I’m going to be wrong most of the time. HOWEVA (Adam used this over the weekends so I’m stealing it), I’ll flat out tell you that I can be wrong instead of telling you I’m going to be right. I want to be known as that person who will tell you what they think and not what you want to hear. HOWEVA , there is a tact to honesty and relationships. I’m not telling you to go up to your co-worker and tell them their suit makes them look overweight because they are overweight. It’s not that honesty. It’s being able to judge who your talking to so that you can relate on their level and do what’s appropriate which may be listening while they educate you. It’s not a science and it isn’t learned overnight. It’s a practice that continuously gets refined.

So when someone asks me how I’m doing, I’m responding like this:
“My problem, I don’t know, I don’t have a problem. Actually I have the opposite of a problem, I made over 550k last year. No, it’s not about money, but for me, it’s a little bit about money, and I made that much money last year. I am the VP of the biggest executive helicopter leasing company on this side of the Western Seaboard. I haven’t had a carb since 2004. See these boys? This is what I live with. Everyday I lather this up with Keihl’s in the shower. You want to touch these? Not gonna happen.

I see my poll is bombing. Apparently people are either at work or too much of a pussy to click on a choice about such a sensitive topic. This was the first poll I’ve taken since October and it made me take a look at my  list of other polls. Most polls die a few days after they are released but certain posts continued to get votes which I found exciting. Here are two that continue to get action.

Cleavage or Underboob?

 Loading ...

Hottest Spice Girl?

 Loading ...

Scary Spice with the most votes?!?!

The more life you experience, the more you know nothing. I’m reading Principles by Ray Dalio and a main principle is to keep an open mind which is hard to do. Ask yourself when you make decisions how you are arriving at them? Are you going off of instinct? Are you conferring with experts? When I’m betting a football game do I think I “know” what is going to happen or do I drunkenly throw money at the game.

I am a big advocate of the Win Friends and Influence People book and with that you learn the golden rule. It provides thoughts to understanding and communicating with other people. That book, along with these Principles, are laying groundwork for my involvement with human beings throughout my life. Win Friends was written in the 1930’s. Principles in 2017. A lot happened between these years to allow new literature to provide deeper insight. Evolution is the key to life and you should be continuously looking to evolve by gathering new information.

Knowing your weaknesses is essential to building. Keeping an open mind will help you learn from other people. This idea starts getting fogged up when you are told all your life to be decisive and a wrong decision is better than a no decision. Now you have this billionaire hedge fund operator who has traveled the world, had conversations with world leaders, and used every instrument at his fingertips telling you that being relentlessly truthful, and getting as much info as possible is a true principle to a fulfilling life. Sheesh. What’s a normal person supposed to do these days?

As I plow through the book, for some reason World War II started to interest me. This is probably completely off topic but I wouldn’t be surprised if the book triggered a thought in my head. Last night I read the entire Wiki page on WWII and it starts to make sense why so many Europeans speak English. It’s not like we, along with Britain, Russia, and China, didn’t influence the upbringing of many cultures after it ended in 1945.  You’d think there’d be tremendous disdain for the USA.

I further thought about the 2 A-bombs that forced Japan to surrender and wondered why on Earth a Japanese man wouldn’t hold a grudge against an American. It’s not like I dropped the bomb, but my country did, and now they look at us and Donald Trump is our President?!? I’m not sure why I hadn’t really looked at it this way before. I think my thought process was “it was in the past”. I’m learning that the past is a good place to visit in order to understand the future.

Then I started getting interested in Vietnam and the Cold War because it became quite apparent to me that even though I may have learned bits and pieces about them in school, I really knew nothing. It got me to thinking that I’m reading a USA Wiki page and I have to imagine the history of this war is completely different in Vietnam. With all this swirling in my head I started to tire of the activity. I came to the conclusion that history repeats itself, people are still the same, and I’m a privileged white dude who didn’t have to fight in any of these wars.

Why is that whatever I feel like is at the end of the tunnel is nowhere in sight? I have near zero problems. I have money. I have shelter. I have good health. I have weaknesses like gambling and alcohol but even if I corrected them I’d be asking, now what? I’ll add that this isn’t depression. This is a realistic look at what the fuck is actually happening. People 100 years ago didn’t have the internet to gain this type of worldly view from their desk chair. We are evolved and it’s scary to think how quickly we’ll be teleporting to work instead of driving. What to do. What to do.

I don’t believe in psychics. The idea of people being able to predict what is going to happen to you is nonsense. If what they knew was so valuable, they would use it on themselves.

I am a believer in people’s brains being able to communicate with unspoken word. When two people start singing the same part of the same song at the same time. When you get a phone call from someone who you were just thinking about. It’s hard to explain because it doesn’t happen often but I had the oddest example happen to me today.

I was shipping a package and when the weather gets cold, the tape doesn’t stick right. So I started thinking about our packaging, and I thought about our boxes, and it struck me that the box salesman hadn’t contacted us in a while. Then I thought that it must be pretty boring being a box salesman, but it synced up with his personality. I couldn’t remember the last time we placed an order for boxes. I knew it was a while and he’d be following up shortly. Lo and behold, I got an email today at 3:38pm today from the box guy.

Now this could simply be that he was alerted in his CRM to contact us. Most likely that’s what it was. It’s unbelievable to me that box man would contact me on the same exact day I thought about him. Probably haven’t thought about our box situation, or him, in 4 months and the day I do, he contacts. Unreal.

This scenario also came hand in hand with the crossword puzzle I did today was asking for ESP as the answer. I couldn’t remember if it was ESP or EPS and then I remember the Mean Girls joke was ESPN which confused me more because why would you just add an N to something that was already right? Should I be expecting a call from Amanda Seyfried? Let’s cross our fingers.

“Hey Nick.”

“My name is Josh.”

There isn’t much more embarrassing then swinging for the fences on a name guess and missing. It’s even worse when you’ve met the person before, sent about 10 emails back and forth, and know you should know their name. It makes the other person feel small and makes me look like an idiot. I’m not going to lie though, I do a decent job socializing and I know that remembering names is important. However, when you start compiling hundreds of names of people who you know you should know, it gets tough. There will be times when I’ll see someone and a name flashes into my head and there is only a split second to decide if I’m going to go for it or not. I bat about 83%, don’t say anything 15%, and whiff the rest.

Not getting out of the woods yet, I wrote a blog post called “7 Principals In Life” and sent it to our account manager to see what he thought. His response was, “I should also note in this case it should be “Principle” vs. “Principal”.” Goddammit. How bad can I look? People are supposed to think I know what I’m doing and I make myself look like a dipshit time and time again.

The great thing about life is that unlike Seth in Superbad (People Don’t Forget!), everyone forgets. There are obviously levels of what to remember, but I think I’ll survive on these misses.

My job, and life, has become creating content. 9 years and 2,945 posts later from rnningfool.com, I create information for my job. There is a formula that works and it’s come up with an attractive sales pitch, create an enticing webpage for said sales pitch, create an email to a targeted audience…then watch the money roll in.

Who would have thought that 9 years after the creation of a personal website on WordPress it would be my entire life. I’m essentially doing rnningfool.com for 3 other people right now utilizing that exact formula. Am I an expert in WordPress? I don’t think so. I can create posts and spread info but nothing I do would be considered cutting edge. Who could have predicted that disseminating information through a website would be a way to make a living. By that I mean that anyone over the age of 40 most likely has to rely on a younger person to do this work. I’m sure in Silicon Valley I’m in the stone age. Yet for what I’m involved in, people rely on me to do this work and to create email blasts. Then it comes down to how well you can delivery a message to your audience which…delivers.

Round and Round We Go

Take Barstool for instance. Their Instagram gets a million views. Posts they put out get 20-100 comments each days. They are a company that only produces content to entertain. What do they offer? Rough and Rowdy Rednecks? Pres eating pizza? It’s mindless drivel. People want it though because their life sucks and the majority of the population is bored. Fucking WordPress. Or Devnet. Whatever they use.

I post mainly because my skills in life are not specialized. I’m a jack of all trades in business. I can talk to people on the phone. Deliver on what I say I’m going to do. See potential in certain sales. But am I good at any one skill? No. Being able to use WordPress, any monkey to learn. Where is the value?

Last night’s weather was slipperier than Riley Reid’s punany. She was the most searched female of 2017 (on a certain site). We had our final bowling week of the season and a decision had to be made on whether to cancel it. The alley said that unless it was a state of emergency, it was on. Then they started getting numerous questions and the alley reverted to the league. Considering I’m the President, the decision fell on me and the treasurer to decide if we should make people drive in those conditions for bowling. If the league starts at 6:30, people would need to be alerted by 4:30. At 4:30, the weather wasn’t coming down too bad and I decided that bowling was on. I asked the list if they would not be able to make it.

There are about 60 people on the list and 4 people immediately said they couldn’t make it. Then I walked home and almost fell on my ass because it was so icy. Now I was starting to have second thoughts. Making people drive to bowling in wintry conditions may not have been worthwhile. Between the hour of 4:30 and 5:30 I was monitoring the situation but by then, it was too late. I got to the lanes and started talking to a few people and I was getting mixed reactions. Some people said it was a bad decision and others applauded the guts. In the end, the majority of the people arrived safely and no real damage was done (to my knowledge).

Now, I write this post because this wasn’t easy for me. Cancelling bowling for the night was the safe move. It would have made the season last longer and throw off next season’s schedule, but it was the safe one. Deciding to move forward with league night put people’s lives in jeopardy and I didn’t want that on my conscience. If anyone got hurt, I would (and still would) feel terrible. This is what it’s like when you have to make decisions for a reasonable amount of people which I’m getting used to as I gain more responsibility as I get older. I know it’s pretty dumb and you can think, “what’s the big deal?” All I can say is that hour leading up to whether people were going to show or not was a straight up indicator if the right decision was made. I think it was. Bowling first. Safety second.