Alan Weiss' The Uncomfortable Truth

I find the use of profanity is the last resort for the inarticulate. It’s supposed to be “daring” and “shocking” but it’s actually just lazy. I sometimes surf through the comedy channels and hear standup comedians simply repeating m…..f….. over and over. There is no intellect there, and intellect and pain are actually the basis for almost all real comedy. Putting profanity on a book cover is boring, but it beats trying to come up with an appealing title. But most alarmingly, it’s simply entered the vernacular as adjectival alternatives. I hear parents in restaurants and at home over meals say s..t at in front of their kids. WTF is used by the more delicate, but it’s profanity nonetheless. Teachers and the “elite” often use it to show they’re “hip” and “down to earth,” which is the absolutely last thing they are. At my gym, where we have personal trainers, the music is very often rap with profound profanities, n….. for blacks, and “bitch” or far worse for women, yet there are black people there as well as wom

Have you ever wondered about how other people might see this society? The proliferation of “tip jars” when virtually no service is performed; the intense scrutiny of head injuries in football, while players who make great plays deliberately bang their heads together; cars that can go almost four times the speed limit, manufactured and sold despite it. Why do we smuggle dogs into restaurants, refuse to merge in traffic, and think AI will become sentient and rule us when we still have to unplug and replug electronics as the primary repair principle? Laugh tracks, scripted reality shows, “influencers”: Why do we kid ourselves with this stuff? I wouldn't mind Wolfgang Puck giving me advice on menu selections, but I resent my life trickling away while a waiter tells me his or her favorite dishes. Why do tennis and golf professionals require total silence, but quarterbacks, basketball players, and boxers do not? Why do we talk too much and too loudly in public areas, but we’re mute in elevators? My guess is that

The opposite of evolution is devolution. Merely moving forward in time chronologically doesn’t guarantee higher standards, better performance, or improvement. Our speech has declined. People support this, claiming that speech must “evolve.” But does evolution include mindless, ubiquitous profanity, unintelligible statements, and confusing grammar? The arts haven’t made great strides, and on television and in the theater we see a procession of diluted revivals and low quality spinoffs. Athletes showboat over a tackle when their team is down three touchdowns. Service levels in most hotels are down, as they are on most airlines, and the latter fly smaller and smaller jets on longer and longer flights to make money despite passenger discomfort. Traffic is terrible in most large cities—incomprehensibly bad in LA— and if you replace every single internal combustion car with an electric car tomorrow, you’d still have the same number of cars on the roads with the same traffic jams! Civility is lower than ever,

Why do people immediately leaving a church service proceed to cut you off in the parking lot or, immediately before it, park in “no parking” fire zones? Don’t you think Bernie Madoff’s entire family figured out he was crooked and simply ignored what they knew? Politicians curry favor with popular positions but then feel free to change positions once elected and safe. The pandemic was, I believe, dishonestly manipulated by politicians and the medical community which led to more illness than necessary, harsher restriction than required, and more public acrimony than would otherwise have been the case. Learn here examples of why both John Denver and Nancy Pelosi have been inauthentic. False praise is far more harmful than honest, negative feedback. If you lie enough on your resume, you eventually begin to really believe the lie, which is why business executives, military leaders, and academicians often face humiliating ousters late in their glorious careers. President Biden has been caught in lies about awar

According to Google, the average college/university tuition in the US is $26,000 a year, but they range up to nearly $90,000 per year. We know this, these are statistics. Philosophy majors in the US make an average of $62,000 per year. The same for history majors. English majors average $56,000. All teachers in public schools average $65,000 (private schools $50,000). We know this, these are statistics. Apart from a very wealthy family supporting you, how much debt can you incur and pay off (while paying for housing, insurance, raising a family, etc.) in what amount of time given your loans and your intended occupation? If you can’t make those numbers work without defaulting on loans or begging the government for help that others didn’t receive, maybe you need to rethink college. Or, at least, private schools. And, of course, maybe the government needs to rethink a ridiculous system in the public sector, at least, before it implodes.

What are the major concerns of leadership in the near future? • Managing the transient worker • Metrics for true performance and not “presence” • The 40 hour week myth • The environment for intrinsic motivation • Voids of personal fulfillment • The loss of travel • Volunteerism • Abandoning guilt for not adhering to archaic work standards • Pushing accountability down and over to the individual • Triaging customers • Finding honest and authentic communications • Embracing true diversity not virtue signaling diversity • Coming to grips with the false promise of retirement • Physical, psychological, and emotional health • Embracing technology with proper proportion • The speed necessity • Thriving in ambiguity, disruption, volatility • Alleviation of excess stress • Being an effective avatar • Knowing how to create personal meaning

• Gratification is pleasure • Immediate means done at once • Why do we seek this: ° To avoid delay in important matters personally/professionally. Evolutionary need for food, protection ° A fear of opportunity lost ° Impulsivity. Especially as we age. If not now, when? ° Intellectual curiosity. ° Poverty, desperation ° Boredom. Here’s a new shiny object. ° The alternative of long hard work (I can make money selling cars now, being an engineer would take six years.) • The trouble is that it is often temporary. (The dog toy breaks.) Other people have the same thing. The novelty wears off. • Often generates anti-social behavior—breaking into a line, theft. • In the longer term is unfulfilling, creating more disappointment. • Undermines all patience even when required: recovering from an illness, waiting for a delayed plane, even waiting at the deli counter. • Impulse purchase items are placed near the cashier in stores or at the end of aisles. • Can cause health problems (stress, ulcers) waiting for an acc

Here’s how I saved the entire $450,000 tuition bill for my kids by not having an office. I’ve never needed nor desired employees for my strong, seven-figure business. I want help that’s “in and out” very quickly, no long-term obligations. I use very good outside firms because I believe in investing money to save money. My worth isn’t based on “virtual assistants” whom I find virtually worthless. Observe the “total days to cash” dynamic, and improve your cash flow by collecting early, not late, on your terms, not the client’s terms. Remember, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep. You can do this without sacrificing well-being: first class air, hotel suites, and limos. That’s because you charge clients basic and reasonable expense rates but can afford to upgrade yourself. But you have to eschew fanaticism. You don’t need version 4.1ab.7-a of anything. I learned the nonsense of ridiculous backups in pre-computer Prudential Insurance. Never “automatically upgrade.” Do I drive the last of the blazing

Bonanza: A situation or event that creates a sudden increase in wealth, good fortune, or profits. It was also a TV show in the heyday of westerns, and ran from 1959 to 1973, second only to Gunsmoke in longevity. It’s still shown in reruns on a variety of cable channels. By accident, I happened to see one the other day with a disclaimer on the screen, citing racial stereotyping on the show and to be aware of it. My first reaction was that this racial and gender stereotyping was all-too-common in the past. My second, however, is that wouldn’t a viewer know that and understand how far we’ve come and how far we still may need to go? (I don’t readily recall stereotyping on Bonanza, although maybe their Asian cook was the problem somehow.) I believe we’re all adults above a certain age, imbued with intelligence and judgment, which allows us to hold jobs, drive cars, and feed ourselves. (If a child were watching that rerun, somehow, would the kid understand the “trigger warning”?) Is this a legitimate warning or

The Second Smartest Guy in the Room by Alan Weiss

We are in the midst of the largest transgenerational shift in wealth in the history of the country. Part of this are the maturing retirement funds created under the Reagan administration, and part is the succession of small business owners from founders to the second (or third) generations. Barry Banther has worked with hundreds of family businesses, from $50 million to $500 million in revenues. He creates strategies for continuity and succession, from family ownership to outright sales with proceeds going to the family. He distinguishes between family-owned and run businesses and family owned but not run businesses (run by professional executives employed for that reason). He's worked with some of the most well-known families in the country whom we can’t name here but whom you would recognize instantly, as well. He talks of the three major factors involved in positioning successful family businesses, and of the sometimes incredible factors overlooked (trusts, wills, successions plans, etc.). He points out

Is an economically disadvantaged kid better off because of an insistence on how many black film editors, or baseball executives, or executive chefs receive awards? Is climate change really helped by expensive legislation that kills jobs and causes inefficiencies? (The prohibition of gas-powered anything.) Virtue signaling is the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue. It’s often expressed as being against something. Remember: Live and let live People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones Do unto others as you would have them do unto you Do as I say not as I do (that didn’t work coming from my father) I don’t care whose picture is on a beer can. I don’t believe you’re a “better” person because you have a black lives matter sign on your lawn. I see too many people praying in church who won’t merge leaving the parking lot. Virtue signaling is the expression of a

Jeff has been representing me for over 30 years, and was responsible for acquiring publishers (McGraw-Hill, Wiley, Macmillan, AMACOM, et. al.) for my four best-sellers, including the 30-year, 6-edition Million Dollar Consulting. He is responsible for thousands of published works and hundreds of authors’ happiness. For example, he represented the famous Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. We talk of the takeover of publishing by large venture capital firms. We discuss why hard copy books have never disappeared or even greatly diminished, despite the false prophets of electronic dominance. Learn how to create a query letter and formal proposal to “sell” an agent to represent you, and why publishers are expecting the authors to market and sell enough books to pay for the entire initial press run (sad, but true, and publishers know next-to-nothing about marketing these days, and wouldn’t invest in it even if they did). Publishers once paid for advances, but now they want the “advance” from you in terms of i

I received a letter from someone who had subscribed to one of my newsletters for $250 annually. He was late, but I accepted him, and he demanded—not requested—that I send him all the issues he has missed. I did that and he complained that they weren’t always in the same format, although I think that was a matter of his equipment, not mine. Now he’s complained that he didn’t get the final (August) issue and went on to lecture me about responsibilities, living up to promises, what constitutes professional businesses, yada yada, yada—sanctimony on parade. And, of course, I had sent it, who knows why he didn’t get it. Ordinarily, I simply provide what’s requested, but I told this guy to buzz off, except with my New Jersey vocabulary. The vast probability with these things is that the problem is on the receiving end. But, more than that, we’re looking at: • A return of Covid • Wildfires around the world, including absolute carnage in Maui • A seemingly endless war in Ukraine • Poor public services (this guy

Elin Hilderbrand has a new book called Five Star Weekend. In my view, it’s awful, not at all up to her earlier work, predictable, with paper-thin characters and a dumb plot. You may disagree with me, most people do according to the reviews on Amazon. But I posted a very critical review. Amazon accepted it. However, after accepting it, someone clearly complained, because I received this obtuse communication today: I never mentioned “authenticity” (in a book??). I’m a veteran reviewer on Amazon. But I think someone from the publisher or author is muting negative reviews and Amazon is going along with it. This is the world we’re living in today, nonsensical responses from automated programs that distort and hide free speech. My critique was purely literary, noting the weaknesses in the book and the writing, nothing ad hominem.  When they start to remove dissenting points of view, where does that leave us?

An “old fashioned” is a fabulous cocktail. The official origin of the drink is still heavily debated. While the Waldorf-Astoria in New York by way of the Pendennis Club, a private social club in Louisville, KY has been crested as the birthplace of the cocktail as we know it today, the publication of Modern American Drinks, by George Kappeler, in 1895 mentions the recipe for the Old Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail that Simonson describes as the evolutionary link between the whiskey cocktail and Old-Fashioned as we know it. I will admit to being “old fashioned.” I believe in courtesy and a balance of personal preference with societal conformance. Recently in Toppers, a world-class restaurant in Nantucket’s Wauwinet Inn, some people had on jackets (once a must) but most had on “resort casual,” shirts and slacks for men, summer dresses for women. One woman, dressed in that manner, came in with a man who had on shorts, a polo shirt, and flip-flops. You might say he was an individualist. Or you might say he was a slob

In 1973, D. Keith Mano wrote his only science fiction book, The Bridge. It takes place in 2035, over 60 years since its original publication, but only 12 years from today. It is about radical environmentalism run amok with a “green” socialist government.  The government decides to give earth back to nature, after already protecting all animal and plant life, but the fact that we destroy microbes every time we breathe is the final straw. Cars have been eliminated, people return to the fields. The world is incapable of complex technology. Obesity is social standing.  There is resistance, but it is ineffective. Diseases must go untreated. Tumors are declared autonomous life forms, and protected.  Everyone must commit suicide, squads are deployed to kill those who don’t and then they will commit suicide, until the earth is free of all humans.  The hero, Priest, is determined not to die but to find his wife. He must cross the decayed and destroyed George Washington Bridge, hence, the book’s name. When I re

When we see an empty ballroom, or stadium, or theater, we can see unlimited possibilities if we have any creative juices at all. We can stage performances, meetings, athletic events, entertainment, networking opportunities, and so forth. But then we think of our fictitious “business life” and “personal life” duality, and we bifurcate that huge space with a wall right down the middle, a line of demarcation with separate pursuits on each side. And then we create meetings, obligations, failure work, responsibilities, “bucket lists,” one-way streets, detours, “do not enter” zones, a great deal of noise, and misdirection. We become mice in a maze of our own creation, and that once huge, empty, high-potential space has become a tiny, oppressive place. The fact is, we have one “life,” period. Personally, I have no problem whatsoever taking a few phone calls at the beach on vacation, just as I have no problem taking a weekday afternoon and spending it at my pool. I can engage in one of my hobbies on a Thursday mor

Let me harshly deal here with people who provide you with feedback you didn’t ask for, don’t require, and can’t use. That applies to feedback which is too positive as well as too negative. We talk here about the trivialists, the hypocrites, the projectionists, and the general pains in the ass. Those who claim the only thing to do with feedback is to consider it are directing you toward the life of the ping pong balls or pickle balls being whacked back and forth. You’ll hear some of my standard replies when offered unsolicited feedback and why even my mother fell into my feedback hell. No one is erecting statues to critics in the park, even to replace those Columbus statues so ardently removed. We honor creators, not critics. Thus: Defend yourself against the time wasters and underminers and passive-aggressives who would, with a patina of supposed good intention, try to derail you. Our job is not to please everyone, not to be liked, but rather to help improve people and be respected. We do that through

Seth Magaziner and I met when he ran for, and served as, Rhode Island State Treasurer for eight years. I asked that we make this conversation non-partisan, to which he agreed, and as always was gracious with his time and accessibility. We talk about his view of the three biggest issues he sees facing America: climate change, income and opportunity inequality, and the rise of non-democratic movements inside and outside of the country. He talks about the House of Representatives as the purest elected part of government, since Senators can be appointed by governors when the office falls vacant, and the President is actually placed in office by the Electoral College. (Originally and Constitutionally, Senators were appointed by state legislatures and there was no popular vote until the 17th Amendment in 1913.) The discussion covered Ukraine, a war that originally was to see Russia in Kiev in two weeks, and is now in its 500th+ day with Russia on the defensive. I asked what we learned about our own military pre