Saturday, December 11, 2021

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Four

On the fourth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me

Four Resolutions

Three Gheorghemas Gifts to Give Yourself

Two Stones of Weight Loss (Your Mileage May Vary)

and Running Gags with Quatro Kitties

I know what you're thinking. Resolutions are as useless as the pixels they're written on, and yours, rob, are even less useful than that. We know you and your weak will, after all.

First of all, that's not very nice. But at least I know where I stand. Jerks.

But you're right. My history of follow-through is as sketchy as an Uzbek cryptocurrency. That doesn't
mean I shouldn't try. And I've had some semi-breakthroughs of late. I have a 70-week Peloton riding streak going (I'm no zman, but I try). I drink at least 80 ounces of water every day (and at least 48 ounces of coffee and 32 ounces of beer - all the ounces up in here). Baby steps.

There are some things I definitely want to focus on in the new year. I could start now, but why do that when there's a completely arbitrary demarcation that allows me three solid weeks of procrastination?

For starters, I'm doubling down on kindness. One of the managers that works for me is retiring at the end of the year. He's been with our business for about five years, and his current job is a pretty big step down from where he was at the peak of his career with one of our competitors. He took the job because he thrives on teaching and coaching sales reps. He's as good at it as anyone I've ever met. 

He's so good because he genuinely cares for his people, and approaches his job with caring and kindness. I've learned more from him than he'll ever know. 

I've always tried to be a 'good' person, but I've never really connected that to leadership until I met this fellow. Since then, I've come across some great writing by people like Tom Peters who draw a clear line between taking care of people and team performance. This article by Fast Company illustrates the difference between being kind and being nice and how the former yields real-world benefits. 

As a corollary to my first resolution, I really, really want to be less angry* at the state of the world. Fuck, but I find too many reasons to rant pointlessly into the intervoid. I don't need to catalogue the various violations that offend me - you've heard them before. 2022 is a decent year to try to temper my rage, since we're still two+ years away from turning the country fully over to the dark side, so I can conserve some energy. 

* I'm really going to try, honest. I don't have high hopes for this one.

One of the proximate causes of my anger is almost certainly the amount of time I spend on social media. I can't give you a good estimate of the number of hours I've spent on the Tweet machine this year, but it's certainly too high to be healthy. And conversely, my time spent reading is way, way down. At the moment, the following books sit on the side table in my living room in various stages of completion:

  • Deacon King Kong, by James McBride
  • Soccer IQ (Vols. 1 & 2), by Dan Blank
  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley
  • Political Tribes, by Amy Chua
  • Our Towns, by James and Deborah Fallows
  • I'll Be Gone in the Dark, by Michelle McNamara
  • Sorry for Your Trouble, by Richard Ford
I've also got about a year's worth of hard copies of The Atlantic to work through. And Dave's about to drop seven more books on the pile. I totally need to make it a point to read more.

I'm in a pretty good spot, fitness-wise, so I'm not going to make a point to focus there. So long as my knee holds out, I can play soccer, ride my bike, run a little bit, and generally stay active. Keeping busy coaching soccer and volunteering on the board of the local club, so doing at least a little bit for my community. I don't lack for good eating and drinking - not messing with that, even though I'd probably sleep better if I did less of the latter.

No, I think I'm about experiences now. Many of us lost a close friend earlier this month. I've seen colleagues and neighbors lose parents, brothers, and even a son just in the past two weeks. The whole quickening of the passage of time thing is a cliché, but that doesn't make the days slow down. And I want to spend those days doing interesting things with the people that make me happy.

And so among other things (spending time with my wife in the early days of our empty nesting come
August comes to mind), I resolve to see every Gheorghie at least once this year. Starting making the bed in your guest room, friends - I'm crashing your scene. 

Can't wait.

22 comments:

  1. Superior post, mi amigo. To resolution No. 1, I'm endlessly curious about other people's jobs, probably because as a reporter bee I was trained as such, and because I never felt like I had a 'real' job -- that I somehow found a dodge.

    Anyway, I'd love to hear how your colleague, and you, help people become better at their job. Particularly sales and connecting with customers and clients, as I don't think I could sell ice cubes in Aruba. I'll hang up and listen.

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  2. If Gheorghefest 2 comes thru you’ll be able see most of us all in on shot.

    I may copy Dave’s schtick and do a books list. Now that o work from home I’ve been able to do much more reading. Speaking of which, Jeff Pearlman’s fantastic book “Showtime” (About the 80s Lakers) is about to be an HBO show. Produced by Adam McKay and featuring tons of big names actors, my favorite casting choice is John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss. The trailer is available on the World Wide Web.

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  3. zwoman’s dog is not down with trees in the house.

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  4. She also isn’t down with Jimmy Smith’s Christmas Cookin’ album. I suspect she’s a Russian spy.

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  5. Great post. Not one to give advice but giving up Twitter a few years ago was the best thing I have done for my mental state. And Facebook a couple of years prior.

    83 degrees in N Fla. Just returned from beach. On the docket this eve are a couple of fat ribeyes, reverse seared along with the appropriate sides.

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  6. Nice work, Robbie. Glad I’ve gotten to see you a few times this year. Never enough for my liking, of course. I’d also like to see all the gheorghies.

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  7. Hey Fla. crew, FWIW, my buddy who used to cover the Jags and has covered NFL for years said tales emerging of Urban's tension and condescending remarks with staff and players are way accurate and in no way sensationalized. He was told by guy still with organization that atmosphere is far worse than anything during his time covering team. Stay tuned.

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  8. I, for one, am shocked Urban Meyer hasn’t succeeded as a NFL head coach lol sorry was tough to type that sentence

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  9. holy shit, it's gheorghemas. i'll do the books, of course. i spend 0 minutes on social media now-- in fact, i generally forget to even come over here . . . but i highly recommend the soccer IQ books. i'll skip those in my posts . . .

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  10. holy shit! zman is 169 pounds. i have used similar methods to get down to 182, the lowest i've weighed in a long time. i did not buy a peloton bike, though (instead i'm getting crushed in the A league of our racquet club). and i'm just drinking less, like elliott explained on Donahue. less. anyway, i'm proud of all the resolutions and weight loss, hopefully, we'll all be around for a long time . . .

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  11. I’m a bit disappointed that zman isn’t just transitioning into a 169 lb pasty hungarian adonis, and wants to drop more lbs.

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  12. Urban needs to go. Let Charlie Strong give it a go.

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  13. The only thing shocking about the Urban Meyer era in Jacksonville is that so many people didn’t see it coming. I’ve got no dog in the fight but I truly hope he didn’t permanently ruin Trevor Lawrence.

    Jacksonville is a great example of the value of ownership in professional sports. Good owners (and they come in many forms) give you a chance to win. Bad owners doom you to mediocrity, or worse, forever. Take it from a Magic fan who would give his kidney for the Devos family to sell the team. Only so much can be done when the controlling interest is a shit show who either doesn’t understand or care how to be successful.

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  14. fairfield only 7.5-point favorites against the tribe in williamsburg this afternoon. proceed accordingly, non-virginians.

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  15. Mark, that is Daniel Snyder summed up. He does care, but he’s such hot garbage as a human that he can’t get out of his own way. Doomed feels about right.

    My other favorite team had the same issue. But the Wilpons finally sold, hallelujah. Still figuring out this Cohen cat, but that precious era of ineptitude just had to end and finally did.

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  16. Social media is awful (GTB comments section being an exception) and recent new reports show it is designed to make you feel bad and angry.

    OBX Dave, I find getting better at my current job means a higher tolerance for bad situations, which leads me to my thoughts on New Year's resolutions...

    I need to find a new job. The good news is that the software job market is white hot.

    For the past few years I've written down a few goals/changers I'd like to see. I don't actively track them. When I look back a year later, I'm pleasantly surprised to see that I've made progress on them. There are studies showing that just writing goals down increases your chance of achieving them.

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  17. As someone who just moved into medical software this past year, I’m excited about Juan’s comment on the job market. I wasn’t looking but maybe I need to touch the resume and see if I can’t get myself a nice raise.

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  18. Washington has approached this Dallas game with a “let’s soil ourselves” mentality. It’s working.

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  19. at least the tribe is only down 24

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  20. Feels like the Tribe men’s hoops when we were in college

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  21. friend of ours just got named the head of security for the new charlotte mls franchise. pretty, pretty cool.

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  22. baylor just put on a defensive clinic against villanova. sheesh.

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