Tolerance, Chinese Democracy, and the 3 C’s

Does fear ever paralyze you? You want to call that relative or friend, but in your mind, they may be upset with you because it’s been too long? Or you want to put in your two weeks and make that career change but your job isn’t that bad now and the benefits are good? Or you’re in that relationship and you’re comfortable. You think to yourself, “I’m not feeling great but it sure as hell beats having to start all over.” As Vampire Weekend says, I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t want to die.

It’s like being Axl Rose at the sound board during the recording, re-recording, re-mixing, and re-jiggering of bandmates during the $13m production process of Chinese Democracy: striving for perfection at the expense of completion. Scared that it won’t be good enough.

All that really matters is executing: making the move, picking up the phone, sending the email.

What would have happened during that scene in Karate Kid (right after Mr. Miyagi goes ape on the skeleton-clad Cobra Kai) where Daniel and Miyagi step foot together in the Cobra Kai and the entire class “falls in” behind Creese. Daniel–in a moment of fight or flight panic–says to Miyagi, “Hey come on, let’s forget this.“

Miyagi doesn’t say, “You’re right…this Sen-Sai is loco his students are trained mercenaries!” He calmly says, “Wait. Not yet.”

It’s that singular moment on which the rest of the movie–and Daniel’s transformation from punching bag to karate champ–hinges.

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As a quick aside….

My brother brought something to my attention recently.  “Do you know all of the movies that we hold dear that were all released in 1984?! It’s astounding.”

The movies released in 1984 had the biggest impact—by the largest margin possible— in shaping my love of movies, outlook on life, and style of humor. 

Romancing the Stone

Top Secret!

Ghostbusters

The Last Starfighter

The Natural

Muppets Take Manhattan

Red Dawn

Conan The Destroyer

Nineteen eighty four may have birthed more heralded or higher-grossing movies (Beverly Hills Cop, Revenge of the Nerds, Purple Rain, Gremlins, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Sixteen Candles among them), but I owe much of my world view to the list above + Back to the Future + Seinfeld, and oddly enough….Val Kilmer’s character Chris Knight from Real Genius. (More on that another day.)

Also released in 1984: The Karate Kid.

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A few months ago I finished the second season of Ted Lasso, and recommended to my therapist that she watch it as well. With so many of my thoughts or life experiences mirroring those in movies and characters I love, I wanted to be able to reference the plotline of his panic attacks, his “always sunny” demeanor masking a more complicated and hidden emotional palette, and the relationship Ted has with the team therapist in my own therapy sessions.

At the beginning of a recent session, she said, “We’re loving Ted Lasso by the way. Although we just watched a really weird episode…it followed Beard through London after they lost in the FA Cup….it was a really bizarre episode.”

“What did you take away from it?” I asked her. “What do you think they were trying to tell us?”

“Well, for one thing,” she replied, “it made me really miss Ted. I just felt uncomfortable the entire time–except for when the three guys got to run on the AFC Richmond field. It kept you on the edge of your seat.”

I didn’t think about the notion of “missing Ted” until she said something, and as I thought more about it…..the more I agreed.

Other thoughts that came to mind:

You think you know somebody….

It gave me more empathy and appreciation for Beard, and the struggles he was going through in the form of self-doubt, relationship insecurity, and his ability for self-sabotage. He walks into the following morning’s meeting with coffee for the crew–but without having experienced that “blue moon evening” with him, as viewers, we would have been none the wiser.

As the credits on that episode rolled….I thought about the old saying: Be kind. (I’ll add…’or at least a little more patient or tolerant.’) Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

My therapist’s comments also made me think more about our “public personas.” How we carry ourselves at work, at dinner, at family gatherings, etc. [I won’t include our “social media personas” here because they are so expertly crafted and fabricated that it’s absurd to include them. At least when you’re face-to-face with someone you can see and feel their words, body language, and facial expressions in real time.]

I love, love, love Ted’s optimism…I imagine most viewers do as well, which is what draws them to the show and character. But skeptics may claim (with at least partial validity) that Ted’s sunny disposition is a facade. He’s a phony. He’s no better or more genuinely optimistic than the rest of us…and he’s doing a disservice to himself and those around him by his fake love of life and people. For argument’s sake, let’s say that they’re right. And Ted’s a complete phony. In the context of the Beard Blue Moon Episode and its level of constant danger or uncertainty at every turn:

Sometimes healthy doses of even quasi-contrived positivity can be better than the alternative, which in Beard’s case was a constant barrage of negativity, self-doubt, and substance-infused dubious decision-making.

And we can analyze this episode, what it’s all supposed to mean, and what it’s all supposed to mean to us, as much as we want. ‘Cause in the end, what it really meant was that Apple paid for two more episodes and the writers had to pen one that didn’t interfere with the plot of the original 10.

I guess the lesson is that you can’t take these things too seriously after all.

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For decades, tolerance to me meant being able to booze as much or more than my friends and still hang out, play games, or cavort long into the night. Must build up the tolerance. In middle and high school and the first 20 years of my adult life, I desperately wanted to run with the big boys. I wanted to be the cool kid, with the in-crowd. Several things – some in and some out of my control – worked to thwart these desires.

• For one, I went through puberty in like 11th grade. This actually was the single biggest contributing factor to my self-doubt and insecurity in my life. Everything cascaded from this situation. It absolutely crushed my athletic ability during the psychologically fragile middle school years; as kids in my grade were all maturing quicker; and thus bigger, faster, and stronger than I was. Looking back, I blame this entirely on my parents for not holding me back a year. (Said lovingly of course.) I graduated high school at 17, and spent the first few months of college being 17…which when you want to go play paintball with the paintball club for their first outing of the year and the entire club is delayed leaving campus because I needed a parents’ signature on the waiver… is mortifying; or when you get busted with an open container on campus in early October and the cops need to call your parents at 2:30am because you’re not 18 yet….also detrimental to one’s psyche….the latter situation occurring the night before my parents were scheduled to visit me for parent’s weekend. I’ll never forget the look on my Mom’s face when I opened my dorm room door to greet them the following morning. I’d seen happier.
• Due to said physical inadequacies, I received less and less playing time at soccer in middle school. While I made the JV team my freshman and sophomore years, several of my best friends made Varsity sophomore year. As they got to hang on weekends with the idolized soccer upperclassmen (the legendary “camping trips” are still talked about to this day), I hit against the upraised half of our basement ping pong table. Baseball was another game I played credibly (light hitting but solid fielder), but knew immediately I had hit my ceiling the first time I faced a true curve ball. So whether consciously or subconsciously I gravitated toward tennis. At least in that sport I could determine my own destiny to some extent–a team of people weren’t relying on me to stop opposing players from advancing down the field. Guile, spin, anticipation, and deception got me through until my body caught up. But playing tennis at a school and in a social ecosystem that valued lacrosse and soccer didn’t score me any cool points. The lax players used to run their start-of-practice tour around the tennis courts, never shy about telling tennis players how masculine and cool they thought we were. Also not helping was playing a year of badminton–even though it was probably the best shape I’ve ever been in in my life, and we taught the team to play dollar bill-poker at matches.
• My love of writing paved my way to the school newspaper for my first three years of high school. Which, although it exposed me to students of all walks of life….especially upperclassmen…it typically led me to interview students from the ruling social elites, rather than join them. Looking back on that experience: the deadline pressures, all huddled around a desk thinking of a headline or subtitle….trying to figure out exactly what to cut in order to make the story fit into the space provided; interviewing coaches–several of whom were relatives and family friends–traveling to cover regional or state championships, and people I got to work with….smart, funny, creative people….those memories rank near the very top of all of high school, actually.
• I was in all GT classes (no AP classes back in those days). I’m not convinced I really belonged in all of them. But my family of teachers was very well connected within the Baltimore County academic community…and I was pulled out of some classes in the middle of sixth grade, plopped into the GT equivalent…and except for science, stayed there until I graduated high school. So my “class friends” – kids that I worked on projects and wrote papers with – were all super smart. They all went to schools I got denied from: Notre Dame, William and Mary, UNC, but I wasn’t even cool to them because I never got straight A’s….the closest I got was all A’s and two B’s.

So here I was…this tennis-playing, newspaper reporting, struggling GT kid who was one of the youngest kids in his grade (and it showed). 

I had relatives and family friends who taught and coached at Dulaney. So things like senior cut day were out of the question. Or bomb threat day…when they herded us up to the track…and kids by the dozens ran and hopped the fences…I waited with the rest of the dupes for hours until the coast was clear, and begrudgingly marched back inside to resume the day’s academic endeavors. Had I instead chosen to hop the fence, I would have gotten the book thrown at me. (And in all honesty, I respected those family members enough not to want my bad behavior to show poorly on them.)

**The above was written on on February 5, 2023….and the below was continued on January 27, 2024.**

So… back to tolerance.  So here I was…this tennis-playing, newspaper reporting, struggling GT kid who was one of the youngest kids in his grade (and it showed). 

For the better part of my life after high school….namely…1995-2019… I made it my life’s mission to build my tolerance….to be able to hang with–first the cool kids in college–and then the cool people at work. And I succeeded. I was a menace on the beruit table. I was one of the last one up at parties. Still had a top-5 GPA in my fraternity house, and still managed to play as high as #2 on my college tennis team. 

At work…I stumbled into public speaking. Not many people enjoyed it, so that was my ticket to advancement. I traveled the country, always with play hard/party hard sales associates. We stayed out late. And I rationalized it all by performing when I needed to. But really….I was rotting from the inside out. 

Tolerance means something very different to me…now at 46…and with my daughters at 15 (16 in May) and 13 (although she thinks she’s 18). I have the luxury of writing all of this with the advantage of hindsight. My 25- or 35-year old self would be merciless and unyielding in observing my current life. Weak. Wuss. Pathetic. In fact, I WAS merciless and unyielding back then in my commentary of friends who reformed their lives and behaviors long ago. I apologize for that….

It goes back to Beard and the Blue Moon….and another great lesson that Ted Lasso taught us during a game of darts in season one: don’t be so quick to judge. Ask questions. Be curious. 

Einstein used to say: Knowledge is not as important as curiosity. I was never the smartest guy in the room. I was just the guy asking the most questions. 

In a new program for work we just launched yesterday…we spent the better part of 2023 researching and trying to categorize and codify the qualities and characteristics of of exceptional coaches. We looked at athletic, academic, and professional coaches. And we eventually landed on three….Curiosity, Courage, and Compassion. We could all do worse than to embrace and embody those qualities in every day life. We are all coaching someone….even if it’s ourselves. 

Back where it all begins…..

I have thought a LOT about those “3 C’s” this past year. What started as a professional project–our job was to build a program around how financial advisors can leverage them to build a stronger, happier, healthier, more loyal book of business–has turned into a personal one. As we grow from adolescents into teenagers and then into routine- and habit-based adults with all of this life experience mucking things up, we tend to slowly lose the 3 C’s. We fall into familiar patterns… “I know what’s best for me and my family,” or conclude that trying new things, feeling vulnerable or awkward, or taking the time to understand or help others, isn’t worth the time and effort. 

In creating that program at work, we looked up quotes for each of the 3 C’s. Not all of these made it into our materials, but these were of particular interest:

• Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning
• If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
• Courage isn’t the ability to get up on the bull; it’s the ability to hang on one second longer. 
• A ship is safe in a harbor. But that’s not what a ship is for. 
• Life shrinks or expands in relation to one’s courage

I’m not sure where to even take this from here…as it’s been almost a year since I first started this. Feels good just to finish it in some form or fashion. 

But we’re on the eve of the Ravens AFC Championship Game vs. the Chiefs. And since yesterday was National Fun At Work day, here’s a clip of the Ravens having a boatload of fun at work.