QUOTATIONS

Scott Belsky is an author, entrepreneur, and an executive at Adobe.  He has seen numerous ideas and companies come and go in his career.  In his book Making Ideas Happen, he outlines numerous best practices and practical approaches to bringing the ethereal into the physical, taking our ideas and making them something useful, desirable, and marketable.  A key component of that is feedback, without it, we risk wasting time, energy, and resources.  

In order to maximize its value, we must first seek it out.  I use a ”council of wise sages” approach.  I recommend you do as well!

Dave Grossman, author, Army officer, and founder of the Killology Research Group wrote the modern seminal work on the emotional, mental, and spiritual effects of killing in his book On Killing.  The book explains the natural aversion we all have to killing, rightfully so, and the precautions and preparations one must make to overcome them should their profession demand it, as in the military or law enforcement. 

He references a well, figurative in nature, but very real in affect, that the leader can draw upon when stress inevitably befalls us.  It is this quote which is the center of this week‘s episode.

In the 2006 movie Facing the Giants, actor Alex Kendrick portrayed football coach Grant Taylor, tasked with uniting a team of underperforming youth football players and helping them rise to their potential. You’ve probably seen the scene from which this quote originates as it regularly makes the rounds on social media as a motivational/inspirational video. It is certainly that and, as usual, much more.

Fort Minor, a side project of Linkin Park superstar lyricist Mike Shinoda, released their album The Rising Tied in 2005 to much acclaim.  The chorus to their song Remember the Name has stuck with me since.  It lays out, in rhyming, catchy lyrics, a recipe that we can use for more than just having our name remembered.

Gander, Newfoundland was the site of one of the greatest collective acts of kindness of which I know.  On September 11, 2001, nearly 7,000 passengers and crew members landed in that small town of only 10,000 residents as American airspace shut down following the terrorist attacks of that day.  What followed was nearly a week of around the clock creative acts of kindness to house, feed, care for, and console them all.  The citizens of Gander are the subject of Jim‘s book The Day the World Came to Town and also the topic of today‘s fantastic quote derived from it.

In 1980, Marilyn Ferguson published her most famous work, The Aquarian Conspiracy.  It drew from many and varied walks of life all the best of humanity and pointed toward an age of collectivism and unity.  It broke with the Cold War paradigms of doom and gloom around every corner and her words echo to our ears today.

This quote has challenging origins but most likely belongs to businessman Abram Collier.  Though his life revolved around business, he clearly saw fit to tip his cap to the challenges of the outdoors.  Having achieved the highest levels of success as the CEO of a life insurance company, Collier clearly saw something in the challenges of the great outdoors.  He recognized the true test of a whole person lies in the extremes the world has to offer.  This is certainly correct and something we all ought to pursue to one degree or another.

Today, I bring you an interview with Dr. Joseph Meyer of the University at Albany.  We discuss literature, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Bartleby the Scrivener, and the pursuit of knowledge at our peril.  Joe brings a though-provoking quote to the episode and we have a couple good laughs along the way.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  

You can find more of Joe‘s work on his amazing podcast, The Neutral Ground Podcast at theneutralgroundpodcast.com.

The death of a child is brutally hard on us all.  Poet John Crowe Ransom writes of just such a hardship in beautiful rhyming lines in Bells for John Whiteside‘s Daughter.  He captures, brilliantly, the youthful excitement, wonder, and imagination of a young girl and her death before her time.  He uses beautiful, captivating imagery to which we can all relate.  This week, we explore his poem in this, our 4th explication.

Karl Marlantes spent a year in combat in Vietnam as a Marine Lieutenant.  During that time he collected memories and medals, sorrows and stories.  He poured those experiences into his award-winning book Matterhorn, a fictionalized memoir of his time there.  Today‘s quote can be read two ways, positively or critically.  Though it may have been written critically, we can interpret and apply it positively.