Seeking Coastal Utopia

Your face is bathed in a white-blue glow. This is the mask of the 21st century. “are you allowing your children to grow up this way?” photo by Ludovic Toinel on  Unsplash Who are you? Are you the same person that is represented on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat? Are you the same person when you are face-to-face? Or are you hiding behind an electronic mask, where the online-personality presents someone who is different than what you portray in the real world? “Guy Fawkes mask” by Samuel Zeller on  Unsplash This is a world where many of us seem to present ourselves differently online, using electronic anonymity. Is it because we are unhappy with who we are when we are at work? Or are we afraid? Is the online persona a different person when you are home? Why? Has the chameleon effect taken over when you are online with your “friends?” Is it healthy that we all have multiple faces, but the one in public is someone else? Too often we have seen som...

Every vote counts. Every single one. Hence the word “count”, as in tally, calculation, enumerate, add together, or totalize. “Go get your exclusive sticker” Photo by Element5 Digital on  Unsplash Go! Vote! NOW! Why would you choose not to vote? You need to be engaged in your community, in your town, city, county, state and the United States. If you do not vote, where else would you have any say? Where else is your voice being heard? Do you know who your local representatives are? Or what initiatives are running in your voting precinct? How can you affect change — and “because I said so” is usually not received very well. “why are you sitting there — get out and vote!” photo by Dylan McLeod on  Unsplash Sitting in the armchair, railing against the television or the Internet, against your local news feed, shrieking of how screwed up things are — what did you do to make a change? Did you vote? Are you even registered to vote ? What are you waiting for? Go r...

How many times have you been in a meeting or a conversation, and someone is looking at their phone or computer while you are talking or presenting? And you are getting this… Mmmhmmm, yep. Yeah. I know. Mmmhmm. Wait — What? Can you repeat that? Change your worldview . You are the person on the phone or on your computer when someone is talking to you. You are hearing them. But are you really listening ? “boy singing on microphone with pop filter” by Jason Rosewell on  Unsplash We are all guilty of that. We allow distractions to take us away from the moment. Stop wasting everyone’s time. Stop being disrespectful. Put your phone down. Close your computer. Stop talking. Hear and listen . Engage in the conversation, at that moment. Hear the person speaking and listen to their words. Process the information. Provide the proper respect and pay attention to the person speaking to you. You cannot multitask. You can not look at your phone or computer (or TV or the races, or,...

“herd of sheep at daytime” by Sean Thoman on  Unsplash So we have stepped outside our comfort zones once or twice in our lives. Yet, do you? Always? Are you here to be a sheep? Or lemming? Herd mentality tends to shape us as a society. Old fashioned peer pressures, social pressures, and even shame tends to keep us in line. But are we expected to stay in line? To follow the rules? If the rules are the ones that are intended to keep you in line, to keep you “normal” from standing out in the crowd, then why not become the person that makes the new rules? Should you consider being a peacock or a flamingo standing among a waddle of penguins? If you are here reading this, you are already in the minority and looking to lead. Are you going to do what you hope to do? We humans take a very egocentric view of ourselves. Most of us believe we are better than the next guy or gal. That we are above the norm, in the “above average” category. But if we are all thinking and believing we ...

Hawthorne Effect Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched? What did that awareness feel like? When you have that feeling, what do you do — do you change your behavior? Do you modify your routine? I am the boss and I am watching. You are the one being watched, what are you doing? You start working harder, being busy. Maybe not necessarily effective, but more active than you once were before you recognized that I was watching. The Hawthorne Effect is real. Having been in and around the manufacturing world since the mid-1990’s we have all seen and been affected by the Hawthorne Effect . Yet the Hawthorne Effect is not just industrial or business; it is social pressure. Having also been into pacing sports for most of my life like running, swimming and biking, the pressure to keep up with the person you are next to or linked to in social networks is not a random phenomena, but an opportunity to better one another. Whether it reflects the competitive spirit, or the pr...