The 1% Download

How to manage the emotional component of learning to motivate the work and minimize the quit

by Walter Oden

Introduction:

Coaching children is a blessing of my full-time job.  Coaching parents is also part of the job description.  Learning is more than a hobby of mine.  As a full-time professional coach, I must be obsessed with the process.  Over the years, I have discovered there is rarely an “always” in the process.  However, there are some patterns.

The Talent Code

The science of teaching the long-term process has been well chronicled in groundbreaking books like The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.

Through Daniel’s research, we were blessed to learn about Myelin, Deep Practice, Highly Talented Pockets and Chunking. The details matter.  Yet, no matter how much valuable material a book like this contains, the public just can’t help themselves.  What do people remember the most? 10 years, 10,000 hours.

Daniel gave us the perspective of a reporter and researcher.  This article is from the perspective of a teacher and coach.  My goals are very different than just applying science. It’s one thing to go to work every day.  It’s another to go to work with a positive outlook on the process.

I do not want to reinvent science.  I want an easier to digest version to use with our students.  We also need to consider another equally important concept.  The “Emotional Component” of learning.

The Emotional Component

As coaches, nothing is more exciting than working with students with great attitudes.  Enter the other end of the continuum; A talented student with a bad attitude.  In reality, we can’t teach the love.  Our hope is to help students get to a skill level where a discipline is fun.

For instance, I teach tennis.  A talented tennis professional knows how to make tennis fun even in the early stages.  Ultimately, the sport of tennis becomes fun when a certain skill level is reached.

During the early days of tennis, skill development can vary greatly student to student.  Overall,  a student’s attitude towards learning these skills is directly related to many factors.  For instance, how do they feel about the subject matter? How familiar is the student with what is being taught?  This can matter when new topics or skills create stress due to lack of experiential reference points.

You also have external forces like parents and peers impacting the student.  Their familiarity, experience and attitude can vary greatly as well.

Finally, the expectation of results (from all parties) can impact the student’s attitude.  How does this student deal with error rate?

All these components wrap up into a category we will call the emotional component of learning.  This article homes in on how to support and coach the emotional component to maximize long period learning.

I have a case of Whiplash

A movie that seriously impacted me as a coach was the academy award nominated Whiplash.  If you haven’t seen the movie, do it.  Click the link to the left to get a sense of what this movie is all about.  Profanity warning! Whether it is music, sports, parenting, teaching, or management we have all seen this style of coaching.

J.K. Simmons plays a jazz teacher/conductor at a small college.  Miles Teller plays a young jazz drummer with aspirations of excelling like his idol Buddy Rich.  What transpires will hold you breathless.  In essence, there is a coaching style that seeks out “the one”.  If you are not “the one” you are emotionally expendable.

Most will agree this is not the best approach to coaching.

Error Rate

I  love writing about the concept of error rate.  How do your students deal with error rate when learning a “hard” or “long period” skill?  Some skills are by definition “long period” meaning that the sheer number of repetitions needed to gain familiarity will take years (not weeks).

 

Everyone is different.  Some people can handle the error rate, some can’t.  High level academic performers may have problems dealing with error rate in sports.  Why? They  are used to regular gratification through grades on tests. This problem is magnified when a student has done something a certain way for a long time.  Unlearning or changing a technique gets even harder when a student is competing regularly.  Let’s define “competing” as anything that has a score, a winner, a loser or grade attached to it.

Sell it

Therefore, “selling” the long-term process is part of the emotional equation.  Yes, part of our job as coaches is to sell the end game.  In fact, it is a major part of our work.  Students (and parents) can get hyper focused on performance results as a measure of success.  This type of student needs something they can grasp on to during the periods of high failure rate. High failure rates are a FACT during the early stages of long period skill development.  The goal is to help prevent their head from melting while making the necessary errors in the early learning process.

 Simplify 

I was presenting at a USPTA World Conference on Tennis and made a statement.  “My goal is to take complicated science and make it simple to apply”.  That presentation was about brain science.

Simplicity is essential if “science” is going to make an impact on students.  It better be simple, or you will lose them.  That means students (and parents) may not need all the scientific details.  Sometimes it is not the “idea” that matters, but how it makes the student “feel”.  How they feel will impact their practice mentality and their ability to stay focused on the future.  Academic principles don’t motivate all students.

Albert

What do people remember Albert Einstein for most?  Was it for his General Theory of Relativity? Was it his hair?  His hatred of shoes and socks? Maybe. Most people remember E=MC²

Out of the clutter, find simplicity  – Albert Einstein

E = MC².  That simple formula created more buzz than the theory itself.  The common man may not understand the complexities of warped space-time or gravitational waves.  Yet, this formula changed the world.  Everyone knows it.  It may have also spawned a surge in young people pursuing careers in physics.  Students are starved for simple concepts.

The Concept

We have all been there.  Been notified of a new Windows 10 update?  Had a bad WiFi location and tried to download an app?  Maybe it is a YouTube upload and it’s a big file.  It is one of the most annoying tech realities.  You start a download and see the dreaded 1% complete.

Most of the time, we just put our phone down and walk away for a while.  Then, we check on it periodically to see how far its gotten.  We get motivated when 1% has moved to 3%.  As long as we see it moving, we don’t panic.  We know it’s working, even if it is slow.  In fact, we are more motivated to walk away and simply let it finish.

The Human Brain

This is exactly how the human brain learns.  It is a slow download.  Then again, everything can download if you are willing to wait.  The human brain is like unlimited cloud storage with a really slow WiFi connection.  It can be both annoying and stressful.  Sometimes, during slow sections of a download, we may question whether things are really downloading at all?

You ever get to a point in a major update (like the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update) where it stalls at a number like 47%?  You start to question whether something happened.  Did the progress stop because of a flaw in the connection?  Is there simply a problem with the install?  This is how students (young and old) may feel during the learning phase!  Parents are also subject to this “learning lag” phenomena.

This is where our job as a coach becomes so important.

Patience 

If we are not patient, we often sabotage the download by rebooting the device or exiting out of the process prematurely.  We can equate this to periods of “quit”.

Therein lies our secret to this concept.  Think of learning “hard things” like the 1 % download.  Tennis is a hard, long period skill.  Playing an instrument is in this realm as well.  Learning a sport and playing an instrument are “large downloads”.  Be patient.  It doesn’t have to happen all at once.  Accept progress that is small. In fact, you may not even notice the progress.  Yet, the download is happening.

Your brain is powerful, but it can’t bite off everything all at once.

The tub is filling, but is it draining?

Another good analogy to emphasize (and sell) this concept is a fast filling tub of water.  A full tub is a metaphor for a lot of information we are trying to put into our brain.  There is only so much water that can go down the drain.  The drain represents maximum input rate our brain can handle.  That is your brain processing hard data.  Be patient.  The tub will drain.  In fact, even a slow drain goes down eventually.  Be careful, overfilling a tub or glass of liquid only gets the floor wet.

How much water you add to the tub is directly related to how much it can hold.  This is where the concept of dosage becomes important.

Dosage

Would you ever get a prescription for a medication and ignore the directions?  I know, just open the bottle and take all the pills!

That’s why it is important to sometimes cutoff new skill drills with a time limit.  The emotional component is directly related to dosage! One example from tennis is  introducing young players to continental grip skills.  Once we get to a certain amount of time, we should stop.  It can be counter productive to keep coaching a skill to get a performance breakthrough in a single teaching session.  Again, dosage impacts the emotional component of skill development.

We can agree that some students can take higher dosages than others.  We will address that later in the article.

How to use dosage in teaching

Here is how I use dosage in a one hour lesson.  I predetermine the topics and approximate time I want to spend on a topic.  When the allotted time on a topic ends, simply tell the student “dosage”.  This message goes well with the 1% download concept.  You ever see a kid hit their phone screen repeatedly if it’s not loading?  You can only get so much data in.  Put it down and let it download.

Danger Will Robinson!

As was noted earlier, we all learn differently.  I am constantly reminded of an unintentional emotional story I heard once from the great American tennis player Eliot Teltscher.  There really isn’t a nicer guy in the world of tennis.  I was attending the National Competition Training Center Seminar in Key Biscayne.  Eliot was recently hired by the USTA to head up High Performance Coaching.  During a round table discussion on junior tennis, the panel was asked “what motivated you to excel?”.

We heard lots of stock answers until Eliot responded.  “My fear of my dad”.  He went on to say that “my fear of my dad probably forced me to practice harder and get to the level I became.  Unfortunately, it didn’t do much for my long-term relationship with my dad”.

We have heard this story from Andre Agassi as well in his book.  This emotional component is a very real pitfall applying science and research literally.  Let’s agree the math on being world-class (10 years, 10,000 hours) is a fact.  This math fails when we try to factor in things like mental health and relationships with people driving the work.

Dosage has to be different to different students.  One size does not fit all.  A 1% download at a slower pace may be the perfect pace for maximizing skill and positive long-term emotional development.  Others can take more push.

Progressive muscle overload 

We are likely all aware of the concept of in strength training.  In short, it is a method of training which puts muscles in a state that pushes them beyond their normal breaking point.  Some research shows this may increase performance gains over traditional training.  You must be careful not to injure the athlete, so there is a lot of skill that goes into this accelerated style of training.  If we think of the brain as a muscle (neuroplasticity) it might work as well.

Capacity Training

Dr. Jim Loehr wrote many books making reference to developing a capacity for stress.   His key to success included adding just enough stress to improve the student’s tolerance for stress.  The magic is in the dosage!  The point of this section is to point out that “overfilling the tub” at times is completely reasonable if it is part of a bigger plan.  Getting the athlete used to having “too much information” could be an argument for better dealing with stress.

However, this may not be the best approach when learning a NEW or LONG PERIOD skill.  Could it be better to control the dosage and calmly preach the 1% download?  The answer depends on the student.

Almost done?

Another strange premise is when you have almost reached 100% of the download, but don’t notice.  Imagine a long staircase where the last step is so high, you can’t see over the top to the finish line.  Students in this mode of thinking may quit right before they are there!

This is like the 87% complete with a lag.  The student is stuck at 87% and thinks they have failed and it will never finish (or get better).  Remember, I talked about certain parts of a download that take extra-long?  It is important as a coach to be aware of this process and make the student know “you are close”.

I often see a student that is very close to mastering a skill in a private lesson, but won’t work on it in a group clinic.  This just stalls the download.  It is these moments that are critical to “push through” the lag.  It is even worse when the students are competing.  They will almost never work on a new skill while trying to win (nor should they).

This is why the 1% download concept is so important.  You don’t need a fast download if the student understands the concept and the end game.  A student can move the needle 1% during the week, but doesn’t have to move it every day during the week.

Partial Download

Apps don’t work unless they are fully downloaded and installed.  This is not true with learning.  It is way more like a low resolution picture becomes higher resolution as the download becomes closer to 100%.  That means the skill is useable long before 100%

Slow download doesn’t mean no download 

Milestones are both useful and dangerous.  They can be a powerful motivation tool when you are exceeding accepted milestones.  They can choke confidence and belief systems when you lag behind the norm.  Enter parent’s fear of their child being “behind” and you have a recipe for Armageddon.

This is another huge advantage of the 1% download concept.  Do you really care how long it takes to get to 100%?  I am specifically talking about students that are lagging in specific areas of academics or sports.  The answer is maybe.  School forces these timelines, so we might not have a choice.  Young tennis players are forced into timelines called “junior tennis”.  Yet, in the grand scheme of life most students and parents would agree that getting to the finish line matters more than the timeline!

If you have a seemingly slow learner, who cares!  As long as the download is progressing, you are headed in the right direction.  Don’t be influenced by other people’s download speeds.  If it looks like the download is progressing, continue to support it towards the 100% goal.

Moments of Suspect (The Shanks)

All apps crash.  It doesn’t mean it’s a bad app.  It doesn’t mean the app doesn’t work.  It just crashed.

I invented the term “moments of suspect” to comedically describe how a well-developed skill goes awry. Remember the scene in Tin Cup where Kevin Costner gets “The Shanks”?

This is caused by lots of things.  I could be you think you are at a 100% download, but might be in the 90% range.  Getting to 90% in the download process is often a time when you FEEL like you have mastered something.  Yet, moments of suspect might be the tell-tale sign you are still not there.

Moments of suspect are in every sport.  We have all seen Lebron have a bad day.  That doesn’t change the fact that he is one of the greatest of all time.  There is a natural ebb and flow of a skill.  It is a lot like a fully charged battery that loses charge without it being plugged in.

Usually, moments of suspect will pass unless you try to fix them right there.  Trying to fix the “Shanks” leads to the scene in Tin Cup.  Sometimes, just walk away from the skill and allow your system to reboot is all it takes.  Usually, your download will pick-up right where it left off.

Some Conclusions

There are no easy answers to being a teacher.  In a perfect world, all students would show up motivated to try hard no matter how they are doing or feeling.  I am convinced that you must have a feel for neuroscience to really maximize the learning of any student.  All students learn at different rates.  All students have different motivation levels.  Finally, different students have different emotional components to manage.

As teachers, we should be careful not to sell performance expectations. Stick to selling  learning expectations.  Remember, that 1% download is a big file.  It takes a while, but what an app!

Copyright Walter Oden, November 2017, all rights reserved.  Please see Global Copyright Notice on Home Page Sidebar

 

 

 

 

 

A Healthy American

A citizen’s plan for healthcare in the United States

Introduction

Dick Fosbury was the 1968 Olympic Gold Medalist in the high jump.  This Portland, Oregon native was famously known for the “Fosbury Flop”.  Even when I was in high school, they were still calling the over the bar back first technique by the same name.  Today, all world-class high jumpers use this technique exclusively.

I lead our discussion on healthcare with a story about the development of the Fosbury Flop. Fosbury invented this technique during his high school years.  As a 16-year-old jumper, he struggled with mastery of the current accepted techniques of the day.  At the time, jumpers either used the scissor (butt first) or belly first technique.  Dick started experimenting.

The real story is in how much resistance he got from experienced coaches.  His early days of trying his new technique was considered funny and silly. Yet, he started to get heights that were competitive.  Coaches pressed Fosbury to abandon his experimental technique and focus on the tried and true methods of the day.  He resisted this pressure. He believed with work that this new technique would eventually be the answer.

It took a gold medal for final vindication.  It seems like all great ideas that are different rarely get support until there is undeniable success.  This is only one historical example of a seemingly oddball idea being the answer to a puzzle.

It’s Just a Puzzle

The key to healthcare is to solve it like a puzzle.  When have you ever taken a complicated puzzle and tried to solve for all the pieces all at once?  This is a recipe for disaster.  Imagine getting frustrated with the puzzle and “forcing” pieces to fit where they clearly don’t.  Or even worse, imagine hundreds of people sitting at a table all trying to solve the same puzzle at the same time.  That is how we have approached the healthcare puzzle for the past 10 years.

How to Legislate

Let’s start with a noble premise.  Put all Americans first.  Not just those demographics that meet political objectives. Can we all agree there are a lot of auto insurance options?  That is true for homeowner’s and life insurance too.  I should definitely shop around right?  Does that mean I should cancel my current policies before finding a better plan?  Sounds silly right? I can support a commitment to REPEAL and REPLACE ONLY when a better idea is put before the American people. Getting a legislative/political victory (what Republicans were trying to achieve) is essentially the same bad direction that the Democrats gave us with the ACA.

A really good idea can always beat partisan politics.

Unlike the disappointing conclusion to Michael Phelps and the Great White Shark, this article will not disappoint.  Here is my solution.

It starts with a mission

First, let’s lay out a couple of key missions to our legislation.

1. Healthcare may not be a right, but it is in our best interest over the long-term.
2. Empathy for people matters.  We understand the pain people and families face with serious disease or illness.  Empathy is part of our equation.
3. Cost matters.  Nothing is free.  As the cost increases, the more the economy suffers.  The more it costs individual families, the more it harms them.  This is as simple as understanding basic economics.  There is a point where cost deflates an economy and creates more burden.  That is our current state with the ACA.
4. A Theory of Equilibrium.  Remember the movie A Beautiful Mind?

The movie was about the life of  John Nash, played by Russell Crowe.  Nash developed a theory that essentially says all things in the universe inevitably find a point of equilibrium. Therefore, no matter what side of the healthcare debate you are on this universal law can’t be changed.

So, what equilibrium are we talking about?  A healthcare plan that balances empathy, cost, supply & demand.

The Premise

The best country in the world needs the healthiest population in the world.  That means the lowest preventable disease and illness rate.  A healthy population means a healthy and happy workforce.  Healthy people are active consumers.  In other words, a healthy population leads to a healthy economy over the long-term.  Legislation that promotes this premise will be supported by the people as long as its cost is manageable.  If it can cost less than current legislation (ACA), it will receive huge public and bipartisan support.  We all benefit from A Healthy American.

The Algebra & its Variables

The solution is starting with defining some independent variables.  See, you do need algebra as an adult!

American Healthcare = Health & Wellness + Primary Care + Catastrophic Care

HC = HW + RS + CC

Algebra has a funny way of solving a lot of problems.  Like all algebraic equations, we must solve for each independent variable.  Here is my summary of the plan below:

A Citizen’s Plan for Healthcare in America

Health & Wellness ($0 to $1,000)

Long before the ACA was conceived, I was out shopping health insurance options as a self-employed American.  There was something very interesting in the market.  Plans were divided into two types.  Those that included health and wellness and those that did not.  No matter what the deductible, guess what I noticed?

The cost differential between plans that included health and wellness (physicals,  vaccinations, etc.) and those that did not was negligible.  That means there were no good reasons to purchase a plan that excluded health and wellness because the cost was essentially the same.  Why do you think this was?  Was it the goodness in the hearts of insurance companies?

It was obviously because the relative cost of health and wellness to an insurance company may be close to $0.  Keeping people healthy is always good business for insurance companies.  It is also good business for families and America as a whole.

How a national health & wellness plan would work

The general concept is that every American citizen would receive a national health & wellness plan.  That means everyone gets the same plan no matter what their income level.  Yet, it would cost significantly less than the current ACA.  In fact, it would have huge rewards over ACA.  Also, this is not nationalizing all of healthcare.  It is a national health & wellness plan.  The goal is to separate this piece from the whole formula.  If you are a Republican, call it a middle class tax cut to be used for health & wellness.  If you are a Democrat, celebrate the idea that we finally have a single payer plan for America.  Call it what ever you want.  Every American wins!

What would it cover?

Essentially, it would cover what you need to keep your family healthy.  That means annual physical (adult & children), routine OB-GYN visits, vaccinations, prenatal check-ups (not maternity), basic vision and dental check-ups.

The premise is that we want every American to use this annually.  If you wonder how valued this would be by Americans, I want to tell a quick story about a piece I saw on West Virginia.  It was about a free clinic that was set-up to help the very poor in a rural areas.  Many of them were interviewed about how they felt about the ACA.  Most of them responded they were very hopeful that it would solve many of their health problems.  What they found was the regular health & wellness is what they needed and wanted.  That was what the clinic was set up to do.

The Emergency Room Argument

During the initial debate on a national healthcare plan, those in support of the ACA legislation always made the emergency room argument.  It was noted that some disadvantaged communities used emergency rooms for primary and non-emergency care.

A national health & wellness plan may resolve a portion of the emergency room problem. Sure, we need more health and wellness clinics.  Yet, the market would resolve this issue since that payment for health and wellness services would be guaranteed by the federal government.

How would could we enforce its use?

I am turning the concept of “mandate” on its head.  Instead of mandating the purchase of an insurance policy, we are mandating the use of a free service that is good for you.  I think there are lots of ideas how to incentivize use of free health and wellness.

One idea could tie the use of the services to certain tax credits.  One easy one is the child tax credit.  If you can attach proof of your annual physical, etc. you may apply for the child tax credit.  For those that don’t qualify for this kind of credit, you could tie it to  personal exemptions.

I see this as being similar to E-check in Ohio.  You have to get an E-Check to register your vehicle.  It is a little annoying, but it is free.  I am forced to complete online coursework to be a high school coach every year.  It doesn’t cost me a penny, just time.  This is very different from the ACA mandate forcing you to buy something you may not want for an exorbitant price!

How much would it cost?

This is where the pavement meets the road.  I am estimating that each American would need $1,000 per year or less on average.  For example, my family needed physicals and vaccinations this year.  My wife needed a visit to her OB-GYN.  That was it.  Yet, I am an accountant and don’t think anything is that simplistic.  So, I decided to break it down by the demographics and population statistics of the United States.

Demographics of the United States

I have had to update my spreadsheets multiple times because the population of the United States is changing every second.  The the world population clock  is a fascinating thing to look at.  There is so much data there.

For example, for our calculations we will use 352.6 million as the current population of the United States.  Yet, this is not the only data we need.

To accurately calculate an annual average cost of service for a national health & wellness plan, we need to break down our population in the following terms:

1. Number of live births each year (to estimate prenatal need)
2. Number of woman needing annual OB-GYN check-ups
3. Number of children needing child care check-ups, vision and dental
4. Number of adults not eligible for Medicare
5. Number of adults needing annual physicals

Our same website allows us to get all this data.  I will summarize the exact numbers below when I extrapolate total cost.

Cost per Service

Once we have this data, we then need to estimate the annual cost of service for each category of heath & wellness.  Utilizing a number of websites, I took a general average to come up with the following.  Each amounts below would be an average cost per American in the specific demographic:

1. Pre-Natal Care – $1,500/year
2. OB-GYN Visit – $250/year
3. Pediatric Check-ups and Vaccinations – $150/year
4. Adult Physicals – $150/year
5. Pediatric Vision Screenings – $50/year
6. Pediatric Dental Screenings – $50/year

We can debate these amounts above.  In fact, right after I publish this article I will receive lots of feedback.  I promise to keep this data updated when new information becomes available.  In addition, as market forces start to react to competition for services, we may see some of these amounts go down.  More on that discussion later.

Extrapolation

So, putting all this data together in one spreadsheet gets me to the following chart:

Some intended consequences

Before some of my friends scoff at spending $78 Billion a year on health & wellness, I need to remind everyone about how quickly we spent significantly more on the bailout of banks and certain companies.  This is a direct investment in the overall sustained health in America!  It is also an investment in reducing the number of people with serious illness or disease.  That should directly reduce the cost of expensive healthcare services over the long-term.  It will also directly improve the quality of life for ALL AMERICANS.  As the quality of life improves across all populations, our labor force should become more productive.  In fact, our entire economy should improve.

Remember, equilibrium theory is driving us towards something.  Why not investing in the people?  Can we call this an investment in the infrastructure of people?  Also, this proposal costs over $600 Billion less than the ACA over 10 years!

Primary Care ($1,000 to $20,000)

Clearly, health & wellness is only one piece of the equation.  Many Americans have costs that go beyond their annual check-ups.

To address this range of healthcare costs, we need a major change in paradigm.  My goal is to change the culture of this category of care.   There are two main problems with the current system:

1. Health insurance is a defined benefit plan
2. There is no free market competition for services

The health insurance market is like looking back in time.  Remember the days of pension plans?  My father in law had one.  You work a certain number of years and here is what you get.  Pension plans were defined benefit retirement plans.  In essence, that means what you were going to receive was set in stone based on a formula.  The part that changed?  The cost to the company.

That is the current problem with health insurance benefits.  Whether you own a personal policy or have one sponsored by your company, benefits are defined.  Yet, each and every year companies and individuals sit back and wait for the their current year cost.  In the last 10 years, cost increases have forced benefits to be reduced!  Not long after ACA was the law of the land, many lost their benefits all together.

I am proposing that this part of healthcare be 100% free-market managed.  That means, the federal government will be hands off in this range of cost.  There are (3) distinct ways an individual or family would cover this range of healthcare costs:

1. They could self insure through a HSA account.  The individual would make contributions.
2. A defined contribution by an employer into the employees HSA account.
3. Small insurance plans with small premiums to cover a defined cost limit.  This is very similar to the property damage coverage on your auto insurance policy.  There is a maximum that an insurance company will pay if you “total” your car.  Deductibles would be small and would impact the premium.  A person could use funds in their HSA to purchase one of these plans.

I want us to think of this range of expenses ($1,000 to $20,000) in terms of the Medicare “Donut Hole”.  Medicare eligible individuals manage this in different ways.  Those that couldn’t afford these costs (when reaching the donut hole) opened a market for Medicare Supplemental Plans.  That is how I see the market for these small insurance plans developing.  It will all be based on demand in the market.

The paradigm shift is that this part of the healthcare market becomes a defined contribution plan.  This is very similar to self funding your retirement with an IRA or 401k.  Also, removing this chunk of cost for our insurance formula would dramatically change the market.

We have essentially removed all costs from $0 to $20,000 at this point.

Below, I will explain how this allows company sponsored plans to change how they support their employees health benefits.

The Impact to Company Sponsored Plans

The first and most important piece is that companies are no longer responsible for insuring their employees health and wellness.  This is a big deal.  This removes a big cost from their employee insurance formula.

Now for the big puzzle piece!  Companies will no longer have to offer a specific health plan with specific deductible and benefits.  No more unknowns of defined benefit plans.  Now they can offer a specific dollar amount for each employee to use as they choose!  As we pointed out earlier, this becomes another defined contribution plan.  This is no different from their 401k.

Finally, companies can manage their healthcare costs without having to cut employees out altogether! Compensation becomes a combination of contributions.  Salary + 401k match + HSA contributions.

Currently, some companies match employee contributions to their 401k.  Maybe this could be the model for contributions to a HSA?

Incentive for Defined Contributions

Just like current HSA’s, contributions could be a pre-tax contribution.  What if we gave corporations a bonus deduction for funding their employees HSA account?  What if the company got a 150% deduction?  That would be pretty incredible incentive to put a lot of an employees compensation into their HSA’s.  The best part is that employees never lose this money.  These amounts carry over to unlimited periods and may help alleviate future more serious health problems.

Competition and Cost

Earlier, I made reference to two major problems in this cost range.  I have addressed the defined benefit issue.  The other major problem was no free market competition for services.  Hospitals and other medical services providers bill at amounts that don’t seem to make any sense to a regular consumer.

My daughter once went to a hospital in for 4 stitches on her ear lobe.  They billed over $6,000 in services!  This is insanity.  It seems that these fees for service are simply some amount large enough to collect a smaller percentage.  Each year, the cost of services goes higher so they can collect what ever their contractual amount is with the various insurance companies.  Also, uninsured individuals pay a higher fee for service to hospitals and other providers than insured individuals.  How ridiculous!

So, the actual users of the service have to just accept whatever the cost is?  This is like always paying premium retail pricing.  You have no power.

I will give a perfect example of this silliness.  We all need to eat.  What if Americans didn’t go to food stores of their choice.  No, they were mandated to buy a shopper’s policy that told them what food to buy and where to buy it.  My policy might say I have to buy my food at Heinen’s (a small higher end supermarket in Northeastern Ohio).  Heinen’s has a business relationship with my food policy company.  Heinen’s knows all the policyholders have to shop there and can’t choose how much or what food they buy.  What do you think this does to pricing?  Yes, it goes up dramatically.

The same is true for primary healthcare.  We need to give users of healthcare more power in shopping for the best value.  Sometimes, you may be willing to pay more for quality and service.  Sometimes, you may want the cheapest price.  Let the market decide!

As we start to have competition for these services hit the market, the Aldi’s of healthcare will enter the market.  Aldi’s is by far the least expensive food market in Northeastern Ohio.  There is nothing wrong with Aldi’s either!  It is a different model and is a lot cheaper.  Well guess what happens at Marc’s and Giant Eagle?  They have to lower prices to compete!  Yes, there are a lot of food store chains in Northeastern Ohio.

Catastrophic Care ($20,000 and higher)

We are finally at the last component in our healthcare formula.  We have solved for all the variables except one:

Healthcare = Health & Wellness (solved) + Primary Care (solved) + Catastrophic Care

We don’t need to define this category in too much detail.  Getting diagnosed with the BIG C would qualify.  A serious car accident or other long-term hospital stay.  Anything that triggers the term “pre-existing condition” might qualify for this category.  There are also some very expensive medications.

There are two categories of people who buy catastrophic care plans.  Healthy people   protecting against a really bad thing happening. How do I get treatment for this horrific illness or injury and not go bankrupt?  For most Americans, that number is over $20,000.

The second population are people who are already seriously ill and trying to keep their very expensive treatment.  These are the people with very expensive pre-existing conditions.

An idea was floated during the recent healthcare debate.  It came from Senator Rand Paul.  His idea might solve our final segment of cost.

Essentially, people would be allowed to join large insurance buying associations.  In other words, groups would not have to be employers.  In this model, any individual could join one of these if they wanted.

The freedom to purchase insurance (nationwide) as part of one of these associations makes the pre-existing condition issue a moot point.  This is the goofy thing in our current market.  Many people with pre-existing conditions are forced to stay in their current jobs to keep their healthcare.  The ACA was supposed to change that and allow people to shop for equivalent plans on the exchange.  That never panned out too well.

Healthy people would want to join these associations to purchase plans to protect against bad news.  Currently sick or injured people would join these associations to be part of a large group and resolve the pre-existing condition issue.

Risk would be spread over large groups which would help to alleviate significant cost to any one risk class.  In the end, competition would also impact cost.

The bigger associations would have more buying power with insurance companies.  Yet, the overall underwriting of the association would be based on the demographics of risk within the pool.

There may even be a way of sharing the high risk pools across all associations.  This currently occurs in the property and casualty insurance markets.  That way, not any one association would be burdened with a significantly larger percentage of the seriously sick.

No one plan is perfect for this category of healthcare.  This will always be the most  difficult category of cost to manage.  Although,  remember what everyone’s #1 fear of repealing the ACA?  Pre-existing conditions.  I think Senator Rand Paul’s idea may resolve this cost category.

Medicaid 

I have not brought up Medicaid in this article on purpose.  I think one of the biggest problems with the ACA was the way Medicaid was forced into the formula.  Medicaid is a very important state program for the poor.  That should not change.  Including state Medicaid programs in a national healthcare plan places incredible burden on the states to manage these programs.  Medicaid should continue to exist and help those that qualify based on their state.  Also, taking health & wellness out of Medicaid is a major expense removed from the states.  That would free up more money for the needy.

Some Concluding Thoughts

The goal of a good healthcare system is that you maximize the health of a whole population.  The mission of this idea is to increase the overall health of America and reduce costs.

With a little help from national health and wellness, we might reduce long-term demand for all levels of care.  Overall, total cost of healthcare should drop.

I have heard a lot of members of Congress (including our President) talk about how complicated healthcare is to solve.  Like most complicated puzzles, you never solve everything in one step.

Do you remember when the first solution to the Rubik’s Cube was released?  We all learned it step by step.  Much like the Rubik’s Cube, we can solve our healthcare challenge step by step.

American Healthcare  = Health & Wellness + Primary Care + Catastrophic Care

I wrote this article to start a conversation.  I don’t have all the answers.  Yet, we can all agree that everyone benefits from A Healthy American.

Copyright Walter Oden – August 2017 – all rights reserved.  See global copyright notice on home page sidebar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Star Wars Saga – After III Before IV

 

A new look at the Star Wars Saga the weekend of the ROGUE ONE opening

Prelude:

Friday night, my kids attended a Star Wars release party.  Last night, we went to see ROGUE ONE.   Excellent movie for the Star Wars junkie. We concluded that it was Episode 3.8.  We are a Star Wars family.  Even our Halloween celebrated Star Wars.  Don’t worry.  No spoiler alerts in this article!

Introduction:

Watching Episode III (Revenge of Sith) is an important precursor to watching ROGUE ONE.  This is the episode where Anakin Skywalker submits to the dark side and becomes Darth Vader.  My kids thought this episode was awesome.  Yet, after watching Episode III again I have some new thoughts. In fact, George Lucas helped.  Commentary on deleted scenes is included with the DVD.

What does the Dark Side mean?

I think the dark side is a metaphor for something in all of us.  Been down that rabbit hole?  Each and every day, we are asked to make choices.  We know what the “right thing to do” is.  We all want to walk that line.  During moments of weakness, we may be tempted to make the “wrong choice”.  What we do at those pivotal moments may shape our story for a lifetime.  Or does it?

Leading up to the Big Moment

I would like to present a new interpretation about why Anakin chose the dark side.  Anakin had just left Sheev Palpatine’s office.  The Sith Lord (Darth Sidious) essentially told Anakin that he was tied to “powers you don’t learn from Jedi’s”.  What happened next was not as obvious.

Skywalker went immediately back to the Jedi council to report what he found. In fact, he ran into Jedi Master Mace Windu (Samuel Jackson).  Remember, Yoda was with the Wookie’s.  Obi Wan was trying to take down General Grievous.  So, your next most senior member of the Jedi council was Master Windu.

When Anakin said “Counselor Palpatine is the Sith Lord!”, Master Windu responded “You are kidding!  I will go there and handle this”  At that point, he ordered Anakin to stay at the Jedi Temple.

The Strange Lack of Judgment

The weirdest thing was when Master Windu chose to go take on a Sith lord without telling Yoda or anyone else.  He simply brought some regular Jedi’s.  What was he thinking?  It took two seconds for Darth Sidious to stab (literally stab) the two assisting Jedi.

Why did he not send a message out to the entire Jedi network?  Why did they not come in with strength?  Pretty bad judgment.  Everyone knows taking on a Sith Lord would be a big battle.

The conflict and additional bad judgement

Then the light saber fight began.  Master Windu and Sidious went at it until the Sith pulled out his famous EVIL LIGHTENING powers.  Why do only dark side Jedi’s use lightening power?  Remember Count Dooku?  More on him later.

Then, the moment.  Anakin couldn’t stand it.  He had to go and see what was happening.  He walked in with Sidious getting deformed by Windu’s light saber deflecting the evil lightning.

Darth Sidious is yelling, “help me…I can’t last much longer”.  Then, Master Windu said “I am ending this now!”  Anakin said something very interesting.

“You can’t kill him.  You must allow him to stand trial.”  This was true in Jedi law.  Jedi’s must not kill anyone that is defenseless.  At that moment, Windu had him under control.  Yet, Anakin broke that same rule when he killed Count Dooku.  In fact, he was told to kill Dooku by Chancellor Palpatine.

The Big Moment, The Big Question

What happened next is well remembered by all that have seen the movie.  Master Windu went to finish off the Sith Lord and Anakin cut off Windu’s hands.  Windu was in shock.  Then, Sidious took control and killed Windu by throwing him off a balcony.

Did Windu’s decision to break Jedi code cause the destruction of the Jedi? In fact, did it cause the rise of the Empire? Did he set the wheels in motion to push Anakin over the edge at a moment of weakness?  We all know that Anakin was susceptible to making a bad choice.  We also know that he was having visions of Padme dying.  Right when Anakin told Windu to not kill Palpatine, a moral conflict was created.

Even though Sidious needed to be eliminated right there, the Jedi have a strict code.    It was also wrong for Anakin to attack Windu.  This moral conflict was too much for Anakin to handle.

What If

If Windu agreed to try to take Sidious alive, one of many things could have happened:

1)      Darth Sidious could have resisted and forced a self defense kill which may have had the help of Anakin.  Anakin would have pleaded with Palpatine to surrender.

2)      They would have controlled Palpatine (or he would have surrendered) and took him to the council for trial.  Chancellor Palpatine had a lot of support in the senate, so he may have rolled the dice.

I think the evidence would have likely prosecuted him.  Especially based on information in the deleted scenes (more below).

3)      The Sith Lord could have escaped.  At this point, the word would have been out and the manhunt would begin.  With the Jedi intact, the potential takeover of the republic would have been slight.

4)      The Senate would have definitely removed Chancelor Palpatine and regained control of the republic.

Also, certain things would have never happened:

1)      Anakin might not have attacked Windu and could have been coached back to his Jedi mindset.

2)      The Jedi Temple would never have been attacked by Anakin.

3)      The Clones would not have had a surprise attack on all the Jedi out in the field.

4)      Padme would never have chased Anakin to the Mustafar (the Lava Planet) and that course of events would not have occurred.  Luke and Leia would be born and raised by Padme and possibly Anakin.

A mid article conclusion

It is all Master Windu’s fault!

A Criminal’s Mind

I have often wondered how many criminals started their life of crime with one bad moment.  The human brain protects itself.  When we commit horrific acts of violence, we go into shock.  I bet part of that shock reflex is a justification for that violence.  In a way, do we justify that one act by giving in to the dark side as a way of life?

Right after Anakin cut off Windu’s hands and the Sith Lord killed him, Anakin yelled “What did I do!!!”.  He knew he went to the point of no return.  At that moment, he committed to Lord Sidious.  He had nowhere to go but the dark side.

If a human commits a horrible violent crime, is this a brain defense?  In other words, once you realize you did something “unforgiveable” do many just submit to evil?  Is there any way to recover?

The Final Dagger

When Padme died, they noted that there was no medical reason.  She likely just gave into death.  She didn’t want to live in a world where the one she loved became evil.  Lord Sidious used this information to put the final dagger in the Anakin.  Darth Vader asked what happened.  Lord Sidious said “In your anger, you killed her”.

Now, there was no reason to ever look at anything in the light.  Lord Vader was forever in the dark.

Did the Dark Side start to invade Samuel Jackson?

One side question might be whether the dark side temporarily entered Windu.  Let’s create a new Star Wars legal defense;  Temporary Dark Side Insanity.  That moment when he was going to kill Sidious was a moment of anger (not self-preservation).  Did the Dark Side of the force create the events that had Windu act the way he did?

Deleted scenes and more back story

Editing a movie must be the hardest part.  There were a whole bunch of scenes that were  really cool.  One was Yoda flying off to the Dagobah system.  This was a beautiful set up for Episode V  (The Empire Strikes Back) when Luke went to see Yoda (after Obi Wan sent him).

A more important set of scenes was a whole plot line that was skipped in the final movie.  Senator Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) and step father of Princess Leia Organa apparently formed a committee of senators.

The scenes showed meetings that they were concerned with the excessive use of power by Chancellor Palpatine.  In fact, they were very worried that democracy did not exist anymore.  In the scenes, they met more than once with Padme.  This is because Padme was the outspoken Senator (Amidala) that made a motion to give the Chancellor special powers.

Padme agreed there was something fishy going on.  In fact, one of the deleted scenes was her challenging Palpatine in his office.  Guess who was looking on? That’s right, Anakin!  In fact, they started to have a personal conflict over Palpatine.

I think this is important because the final version of Episode III implied that Padme was completely in the dark on the events that were brewing.  Yet, there was some conflict between Anakin, Padme and Chancellor Palpatine.  This may explain further why Anakin was doubting his relationship and ability to protect Padme.  It also confirms that Anakin did have some doubts about Palpatine.  This supports my theory that he could have helped Windu subdue Palpatine.

Dooku was a lame apprentice compared to Darth Maul

Lord Sidious had (3) apprentices.  Darth Maul, Count Dooku and Darth Vader.  We can all agree that Darth Vader was the toughest and best apprentice.  But, Count Dooku dropped in skills before his demise.

In Episode II (Attack of the Clones), Count Dooku put on a serious display of evil Jedi skills against Yoda.  He used his light saber, lightening powers and even telekinesis.  He was an even match for Yoda.  So, what happened in Episode III?  Did he stop training?  Was he not feeling well?  Anakin took care of him in a couple of minutes.  Anakin was tough, but not any tougher than Yoda!  Not impressed Dooku, weak effort.

My vote for 2nd best apprentice is definitely Darth Maul.  He gets points for the double light saber and taking out Master Qui-Gon Jinn

Best Jedi Fighters ever (Do we need a playoff system?)

Is there a UJR? That would be a Universal Jedi Rating.  I think this would be a great debate.  Who was the toughest Jedi ever?    My vote is Master Obi Wan Kanobi.  He has never lost head to head.  He is also the only one to defeat Darth Vader.  He also took out Darth Maul and General Grievous.  The one time his lost (to Vader in Episode IV), he gave in to become part of the force. Let’s call this a withdrawal.

Vader would be second, since he defeated everyone including the Emperor (Episode IV – Return of the Jedi).  What do you think?  I can’t vote for Yoda.  He couldn’t defeat Count Dooku.  That immediately eliminates him from my TOP 2.  Why does this discussion sound like a college football debate?

Chewbacca introduced but never saw Yoda again

Did you notice?  Somehow, Yoda worked with Chewbacca in Episode III on the Wookie planet.  When Yoda finally left the planet for the Dagobah system, what happened next?  Somehow, he hooked up with Han Solo prior to Episode IV.

Conclusions

I am a little embarrassed I spent this much time on this article.  At the same time, I couldn’t resist the temptations of the dark side.  I was 10 years old in 1977.  I was finishing a day at the Renaissance Fair.  Waiting in line for archery, I was reminded that if we didn’t leave right now we would miss the new movie.  That new movie was Star Wars.  I stood in line for 2+ hours saw the official national opening of Star Wars.  It was in Westwood, California (Downtown UCLA).  The AVCO Theater was a common place for premiers.  I even remember eating McDonalds in line.  The line went around the block twice!  Yes, it is only fitting that today I share this article with the world.  Look forward to your comments!   shortly.

Copyright Walter Oden – December 18th – 2016 – All rights reserved – Please see global copyright notice on sidebar of home page for additional notices

Five P’s to your Career

The Interplay of Passion, Purpose, Payday, Perks & Prowess

By Walter Oden

Introduction:

Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life!  This may be true, but it leaves out the concept of bankruptcy, homelessness and hunger.  How we choose a career is complicated.  Why we stay in a career is equally complicated.  Choosing to leave one career for another may take a more detailed analysis.  This article proposes such an analysis.

Why the 5 P’s?

If you ever decided to consider another career, you know what happens.  As you are scanning the job sites, you intend to look at careers outside your current business.  Then it happens.  You find yourself getting scared and go right back to the search words in areas you have experience.  We all know why this happens.  Leaving your comfort zone is a little frightening.  Especially when you have a family to support.

Then it hit me.  What we need to do is take an organized look at our career. What if we could categorize each job or career in terms of 5 categories?

Work & Sleep

We have all heard that 1/3 of your life is spent sleeping.  That statistic is pretty important to the mattress industry.  Well, how about working?  Here is some quick math:

Years working:  Age 21-67 = 46 years

Percent of day working:  9/24 = 37.5% * 6/7 days = 32%

That means for about 46 years, your job will be at least a third of your life.  In fact, if you assume you are sleeping about 6 hours per night your job is 50% of your awake hours!  The lesson:  You better like your job.  Which brings me to what “like” means.

You better have the right balance of Passion, Purpose, Payday, Perks & use of Prowess

Passion (Love)

What is your passion?  I like beer and cheese.  Is that a passion?  Probably not.  Yet, ask the founder of Samuel Adams.  He probably considers great beer his passion.  I think a passion is something you choose to do obsessively for unknown reasons.

One of my lifetime passions has been tennis.  I hit my first tennis ball at age 11 against a wall.  I can’t fully explain why I had to do that every day.  I would ride my skateboard down to McKinley Elementary (later Lincoln Junior High) and hit against the wall for hours.  Once I learned to play the game on a tennis court that became hundreds of sets per year.

Passions can become careers.  I am a great example of that.  Is that always the right path?

Purpose (Responsibility)

Purpose is often confused with Passion.  Yet, they have nuanced differences.  For example, tennis may not be my purpose.  Often, we may not know our purpose at the time we are pursuing it.  Sometimes, you may never know your purpose.  Perhaps only outside observers know your purpose in the world.  In other cases, only history will be able to judge your purpose.

Some people might connect the concept of purpose with a higher power.  For instance, only GOD knows your real purpose in the world.  Purpose is the ultimate life secret.  “If I only knew my purpose, I would follow that path”.  On the other hand, purpose is sometimes external to career.  Most people would agree taking care of their family would be ranked high on the purpose list.  When that is the case, it impacts your career decisions.  In fact, we are often sacrificing our own passions based on purpose.

One final note.  Some of us make “purpose” the only goal.  Saint Mother Theresa comes to mind.  She might even call her commitment to alleviating the suffering of people her “passion”.  If you have found both your purpose and passion, nothing else may matter.

Payday (Coin)

It is too bad.  We live in society that defines success by one metric; How much money do you make.  In fact, we can’t help ourselves.  We look up to the rich.  We don’t even do it consciously.  I think we can all agree that we don’t want to judge people by their wealth.  Yet, we do treat people differently based on their economic stature.

Let’s assume you are at a cocktail party with the President of a Fortune 500 company and a Starbuck’s Barista.  You will have a very different initial conversation.  Once you get to know someone, the economics don’t matter in a relationship.

To some people, payday is how they keep score.  The higher the payday (or stack), the more you are winning.  Chasing the “payday” is a goal into its own.  I work with children for a living.  Sometimes I ask them what are your life goals?  Yes, I do goal setting with my students.  Life goals matter.  I am very concerned when I hear “I want to be rich”.  In fact, this is fairly common in my circles.  That means they have been sold the concept “You are only a success if you are rich”.

Yet, seeking the big payday is not always bad.  Why?  The alternative.  I have known people that grew up very poor.  The daily struggle to eat and have housing made chasing the payday a reasonable life goal.  Have you ever heard the story of Jim Carrey about being homeless with his family?

When you hear these stories you understand why people want to have money.  Also, there are famous people that made/make a huge impact in the world because they had money.  JD Rockefeller and Bill Gates are just a couple of examples.  That real impact to society (purpose) would not have been possible without them chasing their payday.

So, maybe the key to this discussion is why do you want a payday?  Is it to live the life of a celebrity?  I just loved the show Entourage.  The premise of the show was 4 kids growing up poor in Queens, New York.

Their goal was to become rich and famous and take each other along for the ride.  Every day was a party.  Yes, a big payday makes that life possible.

There is also a self-worth factor.  We liken respect with wealth.  I will be looked up to or respected if I am wealthy.  Some people equate happiness with “payday” or wealth.  Seeking the payday is not necessarily bad.  But, it does have its pitfalls.  We will discuss this later.

All these questions connected with “Payday” are nuanced and connected with our other P’s in the analysis.

Perks (Lifestyle)

Perks can certainly be the obvious extras of a job.  Healthcare, bonuses, company car are all perks of a career.  But that is not what I am talking about.  I am talking about the stuff that makes your life better.  It might be that you have people at your work that have lots of Indians and Cavs tickets they give away to you.  It might be you have a lot of flexible time.  In other words, your job allows you to come and go as you see fit.  That might let you to attend your kid’s baseball games in the afternoon.  Some jobs might be low in payday, but high in perks.  Maybe you get to work from home.  The opposite might be also be true.  A job could be really high in payday and low in perks.  The final analysis is rating all five P’s in these terms.

Prowess (Skill)

Prowess is our current skills sets.  It may be something we trained to do.  It could be our formal education.  This is a dangerous P.  If I spent 20 years in retail consulting, it is hard to look for a career outside that skill set.

The problem is that skill sets are used to determine employability.  In some cases, they can set you up for the job you really want.  A story that comes to mind is Harrison Ford.  In his early career, he was a self-taught carpenter.  He learned these skills as a young actor to pay his bills.  He took all sorts of jobs within entertainment as a carpenter.  He was even a stage hand for the Doors!  This eventually got him introduced him to George Lucas.  He was given a small role in American Graffiti.  Yet, he was still being hired as a carpenter.  In fact, even after American Graffiti, George Lucas hired Ford as a carpenter to expand his office.

He got additional small roles in some of George Lucas’ next films until that famous day.  Ford was finally hired by George to read lines opposite actors auditioning for Star Wars.  George finally noticed, “this guy could be my Han Solo.”

So, the key to this category is that we all have a variety of skills sets.  Sometimes, those skills are connected with our career.  Sometimes they are not.  Is your current career simply using your skills without having huge passion, purpose or perks?  Prowess matters, but use it wisely.  Harrison Ford successfully pivoted a skill into a passion and purpose.

The Paradox (The Hidden 6th P)

I have been lucky enough to live in two very different career worlds.  My initial career was a CPA in a large multinational firm.  My second career was pursuing my passion for tennis.  I am careful to refer to tennis as a “Passion”.  Tennis is not my “Purpose” in life.  That is yet to be determined.  I would also not consider it my “Payday”.  Yes, I get paid.  Although, each year varies with the economic wind.  Clearly, I chose the passion as the priority.

You might argue my job is high in perks.  Relationships are strong and familiar.  My friendships are pure and honest.  I teach children and adults to love something healthy.  I essentially have become a part of many families.  I consider this a tremendous perk.

On the other hand, there are times the economic pressure can make this career difficult to sustain.  There is not a year that I don’t consider chasing the “payday”.  In fact, I question the validity of prioritizing my “passion” in place of my “purpose”.  I believe my “purpose” is to be a good husband and father.  Therefore, taking care of my family must trump all other goals.  Being true to that “purpose” may require a bigger sustained “payday”.

For a final twist in the paradox, I would never have met my wife (or had my family) without following my “passion”.  I met my wife (of almost 15 years) on a tennis court!  So, my “purpose” was introduced to me because I chased my “passion”.

Some Graphs to Analyze your 5P’s

I am a graph guy.  I love them.  I created a couple of graphs to use these concepts.  The first uses 2 of the 5P’s.  I decided to use “Passion” and “Payday”.  In the graph below, you have 4 quadrants.  If you find a career that has is high “Passion” and high “Payday”, you hit the jackpot.  I labeled that area green for GO.  If you have a job that is low “Passion” and low “Payday”, I gave it an obvious red color.  The only reason you wouldn’t STOP right there would be the “Purpose” factor was off the charts.  The other two quadrants are yellow because you need caution.  What balance between Passion and Payday fits your current situation?

The next graph might be a little more useful.  It lists all the 5P’s in a bar graph.  The goal is to rank your current job with a percentage in each of the 5P’s.  Imagine getting a job that pays you over $1M per year for digging out roadside ditches.  Your graph would be 100% on payday, but nearly 0% in each of the other categories.  I included my current analysis of my career in tennis.  It might be important to set limits or floors in each category.  Maybe a warning sign would be if a single category falls below 50%.  It all depends on your personal situation.

Some Conclusions:

I think the most important point is that our graphs change with time.  Life events, age of our children, health of parents can all drastically change our analysis.

Since our graphs change over time,  a “P” may abruptly fall below a certain level.    For example, my job role was just changed.  Suddenly, Passion and Purpose have been forced below the 50% mark.  This can lead to increased stress, pressure and unhappiness.  The Payday and Perks better be high enough to compensate, or something will have to give.

Likewise, if I have been forced to take a pay cut,  you may find that no Passion, Purpose or Perks can justify staying in that job or career.  Honesty in this analysis is key.  If playing guitar is my passion (and job), but I can’t pay the mortgage it is time to get another job!

Thanks for taking the time to read this article. Your feedback is always welcome.

Copyright Walter Oden – October 21^st, 2016 – All Rights Reserved

Please review the global copyright notice on my homepage sidebar

Wakarimasu ka?

How misunderstanding can lead to both comedy and war

Introduction:

” The key to strong relationship is great communication”.  That may be true.  Good communication is the constant cliché of books and videos.  Yet, miscommunication is an equal cousin.  I thought it would be interesting to look at the power of miscommunication.

Some miscommunication we can laugh about.  Still, miscommunication can make you scratch your head and go hmmmm?  This was my chance to make you watch the video from C & C Music Factory.

Still other miscommunications can create hate, violence and war.  Much like dark matter makes up a large chunk of the universe; I like to think of “miscommunication” as a dark side of the communication continuum.

Technology and Communication Fails

Autocorrect is an inadvertent addition to the comedy world.  It all starts with a text message.  We try to type quickly to keep up with a conversation.  Then, artificial intelligence kicks in and changes certain words as it predicts what your were trying to spell.  Some of the autocorrect threads are way too saucy for my blog.  If you are so inclined, it will take you 2 seconds to search for all best autocorrect fails. One interesting note, a couple of years ago all text auto correct fails were due to spelling corrections.  Now with voice to text, they are increasingly due to true language misinterpretation.

Three’s Company and the birth of the Sitcom

John Ritter played the character Jack Tripper.  He was the star on the hit sitcom Three’s Company.  Each week, you would watch a script that was essentially based on misunderstanding.  It was set in my hometown of Santa Monica.  For those of you that didn’t know the subplot on the show, John had to pretend to be gay to be able to live with two women.  This essentially created the foundation for the entire show.  Just changing each person’s perception of the “real story” allowed the screenwriters to create funny moments.  They even had a character Chrissy Snow that communicated in such a convoluted way, nobody understood her.

Most sitcoms have the same theme.  They are situations based on miscommunication.  The premise is that we all will laugh at the misunderstanding of the characters.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Morris the Cat

My dad told a story that I will never be able to do justice.  He describes a time when he was a professor at Kent State.  We were living on University Drive (for all the locals out there).  We had an orange cat name Morris.  Yes, it was from the old catfood commercials with the finicky cat name Morris.

Morris was an outdoor cat.  That means he would go out all night.  He would only return for food and an occasional rub.  Well, one night he went out an got in a fight.  He was a big cat, but got pretty messed up.  He had open wounds and my dad was worried about him.

My dad went to the University and was visibly upset.  One of my dad’s fellow professor friends noticed the demeanor change.  It was easy to see when my dad was upset. That was because he was one of the most outgoing happy people around.  Everything was about comedy.  So, when he was sad or upset it showed.

My dad’s  friend was of Indian decent.  I need you to imagine the accent because when my dad told the story, it was always there.    If I see you in person, I can demonstrate.

My dad’s professor friend asked “Dick, what is wrong today?”  My dad’s name was Richard.  Yes,  it is old school.  Everyone called him Dick.  My dad couldn’t hide his depression.  “It’s Morris, he got hurt and is really messed up”.  My dad’s friend was immediately upset.  “Did you take him to the doctor?”  My dad sighed and said “No, I will just wait a day and see how he is doing”.  This set my dad’s friend off.  “You should not wait!”  My dad walked away and started his day.

The next day, Morris was not better.  In fact, he was probably worse.  My dad was a good cat owner.  This has happened before.  He had certainly taken his cats to the vet for a variety of reasons.  Morris had also been in fights before.  He was a tough cat and had healed each time.

Once again, my dad was in a breakout room with his friend.  His friend immediately asked, “How is Morris?”  My dad sadly reported “He is worse”.  You can predict the response.  “Are you kidding me?  You are the worst father ever!  You don’t wait a day to take someone to the hospital after they get hurt!  What kind of person are you?  I don’t even know who you are anymore!”

My dad was really shocked.  He couldn’t believe his friend was so emotional about cats.  He decided to try to lower the tension by saying “My friend, I appreciate your passion for cats.  I will definitely take Morris to the doctor the minute I get home.”

My dad’s friend changed expressions.  He went from bright-eyed shocked to laughter.  “Morris is a cat?  I thought it was your son!  My god, we would eat cats when I was younger!”

One note on this story.  It was so much funnier when you add the Indian accent.  I am also sure I missed a lot of build up.  Yet, I never claim to be as good a story-teller as my dad.

Curb your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld

Larry David became famous as one of the writers on the hit show Seinfeld.  The character George Costanza was said to be based on the real life Larry David.  This Seinfeld writer decided to embark on a darker, more stressful show.  Curb your Enthusiasm was the HBO hit that was based on unscripted miscommunication.  In fact, the comedy was always based on misunderstanding Larry.  The best way to describe the show is uncomfortable.  You try so hard to root for Larry, but things never go as planned.  For instance, watching Larry describe Parkinson’s Disease can make you cringe. The interesting twist to miscommunication is that both Larry and the audience were always aware of the miscommunication.  Viewers have to painfully live through what follows.

How World War I began

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is famously linked with the start of World War I.  World War I may have claimed 10 million lives.  Yet, the final cause of his assassination was linked with a strange miscommunication in directions.  Apparently, the Archduke  had escaped an initial planned assassination attempt.  In fact, the assasins attacked the wrong vehicle.  So, an initial miscommunication saved his life!  Yet, when the Archduke attempted to visit the unlucky victims of the attack, his driver got mixed up on where to go.  In fact, his driver tried to back-up on a street to change directions.  This coincidently caught the eye of one of the members of the political party that planned the initial attack.  Sure enough, the new assassin hit his mark.  The rest is literally history.

MapQuest’s Rise and Demise

You would think that direction miscommunications were limited to turn of the century errors.  Horror movie plots love this premise.  Yet, I can remember a recent event that involved the “flash in the pan” website MapQuest.

Remember when we used to load addresses into the MapQuest website and print out directions?  Remember how many times it failed?  I wrote a whole blog post on that fail.  The post was called Real American.  If you didn’t read it, it received quite a few nods of approval.

War of the Worlds

This is one of my favorite stories ever.  The legendary Orson Welles was a radio personality before he became a movie star.  In 1938, he and his staff decided to tell the story of War of the Worlds (written by H.G. Wells) as if it was an actual news event.  What happened next was nationwide panic.  By the end of the broadcast, people assumed we were being invaded my Martians.  It was brilliant.  Yet, Orson Welles was later forced to apologize to the public.  I found the original recording.  Let it run in the background when you are doing something in your house.  The build up made you realize that the age of radio was so special.

Original radio broadcast of War of the Worlds

Wakarimasu ka

The title of this article comes from my memories of watching James Clavell’s Shogun mini-series.  Want a quick lesson in Japanese?

Conclusions:

This topic of misunderstanding spawns an important discussion about communication.  The problem is the cliché of communication.  We always talk about relationships being based on trust and communication.  The question is how hard do we try to understand others?  More importantly, how much do we care to understand one another?  I think many misunderstandings occur between families.  With that in mind, I will work to listen to my kids as they describe how they feel.  Right after that, I will try to convince them we are being invaded by Martians.

Copyright Walter Oden – September 2015 – All Rights Reserved.  See Global Copyright Notice on sidebar of home page for additional notifications.

 

The Brown’s Index

Why results in the NFL impact local economies

By Walter Oden

Introduction

He tried to lose it. He must have wanted Johnny Manziel to get the next start. Maybe that is why Manziel was getting into brawls at local hotels? How did Brian Hoyer throw those two interceptions late in the game on Sunday? Really? Did he really want the City of Cleveland to drop in attitude and productivity on Monday?

The Premise

In my previous life, I worked in downtown Cleveland. I was a CPA with a large multi-national firm. Monday had a special meaning to everyone. Especially during the winter. The winter was known as busy season. Our hours were heavy. The work was monotonous. You would work full Saturdays with only Sunday to recharge. Sunday mattered. The Brown’s game was everything.

Major League Baseball and the Indians

The Indians and Cavaliers are also big in Cleveland. Yet, their games never impact the city quite as much. A typical baseball season is 160 games. 80 of those games are played at home. In addition, the games are played in the Spring, Summer and Fall. Any negatives from bad play by the Indians are mitigated by the great weather. That’s right. Cleveland is leaving its long torturous freeze known as January, February and March. April is the beginning of the thaw and baseball season. Win or lose, we win in Cleveland with baseball season.

The NBA and Cavaliers

The Cavaliers have a completely different feel. With the return of Lebron James, all is right with the Cav’s. Yes, we will accept all wins and losses as part of a bigger goal. We love to see the Cav’s win, but take the losses in stride. Also, let’s not forget the NBA holds an 82 game season. Each win and loss doesn’t mean that much.

The NFL Season

I wonder how many of you are old enough to remember when an NFL season was only 14 games? Now that it is 16 games, you would think that we could recover from a loss as a city. Each game is like gold. All football fans know that you must get to a magic 9 wins to have a prayer at a playoff. Some years, you have to have 10. I do remember one year when the Brown’s won their division with an 8-8 season. That was back when Bernie Kosar was still throwing deep to Webster Slaughter. Yes, the math matters. That is why each Sunday, the NFL has the entire city in their hands.

The Impact

It’s Monday morning. The drive downtown or to a client was torture. Unless you left by 7:00am, you were punished in traffic. If the weather was really bad, you might as well walk to work. If the Brown’s won the day before, you were calm even during full traffic jams. You were likely listening to talk radio celebrating the win. Your spirits were high. You couldn’t wait to share your emotions with your colleagues and clients. In fact, this was the one time that “bad relationships” were actually put on hold. Yes, it was a honeymoon period. A Brown’s win was like a fresh wedding. You were “love struck” and anything and everything that people did around you was just fine.

Business

Conflicts were put on hold. In fact, many things were accomplished because relationships improved. Good feelings led to more work. We had more hope and more reason to live. Mind you, most of these emotions were subconscious. Yet, by Wednesday many of these feelings were forgotten. People returned to their old ways. Deals that were made Monday, would never happen by Wednesday. Yes, business was impacted by a Brown’s win. Productivity was up. People were happy to be in Cleveland!

A Brown’s Loss

I like to paint the positives before the negatives. If the Brown’s lost on Sunday, the entire day was lost. Remember, Sunday was a critical day to recharge. Without ending the day with positive emotions, you might be in “pout mode” for the rest of Sunday. This was setting you up for a bad week. This was setting you up for a terrible Monday!

Monday after a Loss

Monday would always start poorly. You would wake up tired and restless. You might even wake up thinking about that turnover that gave the game away. Everything would move slowly. It would be hard to get out the door. Traffic would be especially bad. In classic Cleveland terms, it would probably be snowing. Talk radio was lamenting with you. You would listen to “what went wrong” talk all the way to work. This day was going to be bad.

Business after a Brown’s loss

People didn’t want to talk. You would, but didn’t want to. There was no celebrating together in the coffee room. There was nothing to talk about except work. All the people you had conflict with were in their offices with their heads down. You dreaded having to talk to them. There was no ice breaker like  “Can you believe that last series?” No smiles, no bonding. Work got done, but without joy and energy.

The Rest of the City

I have interviewed a lot of people on this premise. My wife claims that she “avoided all men” on a Monday when the Brown’s lost. As funny as that sounds, I think it ran deeper than that. I think the subliminal impact to the economy was real. I can’t prove that there was a reduction in a Cleveland GDP. Yet, I bet there was.

The Conclusion

Cleveland is unique city with deep traditions in sports. The Cleveland Brown’s are our family. Watching a player drop a pass is like watching your son fail. You feel it in your guts. Monday was a good day in Cleveland. The Brown’s won. If you had a big deal to close, I hope you did it on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving Cleveland!

Global Copyright Notice can be found on right toolbar of the Home Page.  Copyright Walter Oden & “I Have an Idea” – November 2014.  All rights are reserved.

The Ebola Threat

Mutations: What you Need to Know 

Introduction:

As if we needed something else to worry about.  This morning, a second case of Ebola in the United States has been confirmed.  Is this the beginning of a worldwide Outbreak?  We all remember the movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman.

Now, the CDC is reporting a much scarier premise.  There are mutations.  I will try to summarize these as best I can.

Lobola

We open with a harmless, but annoying mutation of Ebola.  Lobola only affects tennis players.  Symptoms include an extreme emphasis on defense.  These players becomes the “last resort” in finding a fourth.

FeeBola

Do you believe in government conspiracies?  This might be the smoking gun.  This strain of Ebola seems to have been contracted decades ago.  Most commonly found in members of Congress, patients are often found pretending to get things done.  In advanced stages, the affected may become a Speaker of the House or Majority Leader.  In all cases, you become completely useless.

Kabbola

This alteration is hard to diagnose.  The CDC has traced its origins to Madonna, yet it may have been there much earlier.

Hobola

Hobola is a variation that has recently appeared again.  It most common around Halloween.  Patients that have contracted this version of Ebola tend to have BIG PLANS for a great Halloween costume.  Procrastination sets in and the affected sadly dresses up in old dirty clothes and tries to claim “This is my costume”.

Wabola

Patients report symptoms of “feeling unstable”.  One person interviewed said “It looked like they were going to fall down!   Yet, they would not fall down!”  Go to the hospital immediately if you start to resemble an egg.

JarJarBola

Gungans beware!  The first case of Ebola affecting residents of Naboo is spreading like a Clone War.  Symptoms include annoying phraseology and poor syntax.

DaBearsola

We all know Chicago is having problems with violent crime.  Now we have to worry about their own mutation of Ebola.  Symptoms of this strain include eating excessive amounts of Polska Kielbasa.  Recent reports are indicating the potential for random heart attacks.  They have traced the first case directly to Mike Ditka.

Ricola

The CDC did a press release of this transmutation.  “The Hills are Alive, with the Sound of Ricola”.  Scary to say the least.  Early symptoms are simply a sore throat.  Yet, if you see a man standing on a mountain with a big horn, stay away.

Well, that’s all that has been reported to date.  Keep yourself safe out there!

Copyright Walter Oden and I Have and Idea, October 1st, 2014, all rights reserved.  Please see the global copyright notice on my sidebar.

Real American

by Walter Oden

Written and Posted on Facebook on September 28, 2012

Yesterday I was on the “bus ride from hell”. I coach at a private all girls’ school in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Many of you know Laurel School. Since it is a small private school, they do not own a large bus fleet. Instead, they choose to use a bus company for most of their athletic competitions.

We were traveling to the far west side of Cleveland (Avon). The ride should take about 45 minutes assuming you know where you are going. Therein lies the crux of “bus ride from hell”. This driver had only lived in Cleveland for about a year. In addition, he was told to follow the exact MAPQUEST route he was given by dispatch. I often like how we ignore the word “QUEST” in MAPQUEST. It is not my goal to begin a “Quest” or “Campaign” every time I set out to drive somewhere.

Needless to say, this 45 minute ride became a 90 minute ride after he took us to Avon Lake High School instead of Avon High School.

Luckily, the opposing coach was a friend and we played a good match until it was pitch black. No worries. The bus driver patiently waited in the parking lot for us to finish. There was only one player traveling back on the bus with me. All the rest of the players were with their parents.

I told the bus driver, “I will give you a great route home”. He responded “That will be great”. That was the beginning of one of the most surprising conversations I have had all year.

This driver was probably in his early 60’s, but in impressive shape. You could tell he was a weight lifter or had a career that developed him. He had a short clean hair cut. It was brushed back neatly and kept in place with some form of “old school” hair care product.

I started some different topics to make the ride light and friendly. He admitted that he was very upset and embarrassed by what happened during the ride down. I made sure he knew it was no big deal and not his fault.

He mentioned that he would have to park the bus at the bus depot, and basically have to get a bite to eat and be ready to be at “his other job” by 3am. He was a driver for a different company as well.

I mentioned “Wow, you represent America right now….doing whatever it takes to get the bills paid”. He nodded in agreement.

I brought up the very important event of the day. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had addressed the UN earlier that day. We started to talk a little bit about foreign policy. I pointed out that “In spite of all the political bashing, there is probably no ONE right answer how to approach the Middle East crisis”. He nodded and asked “Did you serve?” I responded “No, but I have always held a deep respect for those that choose to serve”. I was able to get him to tell me that he was a Marine in the late days of Vietnam.

He had actually enlisted in the 1970’s. He was a little fuzzy on the year he was there. One funny part of the story was that he was assured by the recruiter that he would NOT BE GOING TO VIETNAM. Sure enough, the day he finished basic training he got his orders. There was no complaining. He was a Marine. He followed orders.

1975 was the final withdrawal from Vietnam War. President Nixon is largely given credit for this end. He implied that he was there very late in the war. Yet at the time, no one told the troops that. They were in a CONSTANT line of fire. He said with a non-emotional tone “I saw some really crazy things…” He commented that “The Vietnam War was messed up, we probably shouldn’t have been there”. I countered with “It’s hard to fight a conflict if you don’t know your purpose or your enemy”. We had a strange agreement (Civilian and Military Man) that all war is bad. On the other hand, if you are going to fight one, you need to know the purpose, the mission and have a will to win.

He quickly changed the subject to his son. His son was a Marine too. In fact, he served two tours of duty in Afghanistan. He told me his son was a real tough kid. He also enlisted and was always the “fighter type”. He told me how worried everyday when his son was away. He was implying the obvious. He also had a daughter he talked about.

As the conversation continued I could sense such pain in his words. “I am really worried for my grandkids”. He has (5) of them. One of them has medical issues. You could tell that he was very emotionally attached to his grandkids. “I worry about them a lot”. Then he mentioned his ex-wife. I come to find out she works in Washington DC. “She works at the Pentagon”. I asked how long has she been with the Department of Defense? He said “going on 12 years”. I immediately realized she was there on 9/11. He said “yes, but she won’t tell me any details about the day….you know….classified”.

It was starting to become clear what life experiences this man had. Here was a Vietnam veteran formerly married to someone that lived through 9/11. He had a son that put his life on the line to serve his country in Afghanistan. He was working two jobs to barely get by. He was a proud man. He wanted to take responsibility and was embarrassed by something that was clearly not his fault with regard to directions. He was deeply concerned for the well being of his children and grandchildren.

“I lost a son too…” I said “Oh my god….I am so sorry…..how?” He continued “He was almost 18 years old…..and got killed in a robbery attempt…..they never caught the guy who killed him” At this point, I wanted to hug him. For some reason, we developed enough of a relationship during that ride home that he decided to share the defining point in his life. He lost a child. Not to war, not to sickness, but to society. And yet, he will be getting up at 3am to drive a bus in the morning…Real American defined.

Copyright Walter Oden – September 2012 – All Rights Reserved – Please see Global Copyright Notice in right toolbar

Cross Hand Dominance – The Lefty Righty Conundrum

Why we need more sophisticated methodologies to analyze handedness in our children

By Walter Oden

Introduction

As I have started to wrap our summer of tennis camps, I have an observation about children.  The younger the child, the less obvious hand dominance is present.  On the other hand, there are some markers.  Why do we care?  Don’t children naturally gravitate to their genetic handedness?  Parents are often very sensitive to their child using the “correct” hand. My goal is to present some theory to help you understand handedness.

The Premise

I will argue that all human beings fall on a continuum of hand dominance.  Many of you know my obsession with brain dominance theory.  This premise is not that different. There are actually (2) handedness graphs for every person.  There will be one for FINE MOTOR skills and one for GROSS MOTOR skills.

| Left Handed —————— Gross Motor Skills ———————- Right Handed|

 | Left Handed ——————- Fine Motor Skills ———————– Right Handed|

 Throughout this article, we will firm up our evidence for this hypothesis.

The Signs

The best examples of our hand dominance confusion come straight from professional sports.  We will tell stories of handedness from Baseball, Golf & Tennis.

Maria Sharapova

The hard court season in tennis is in full swing.  Memories of Wimbledon & The French Open have long passed.  Yet, I started writing this article during the French Open!  So a little memory lane is needed.

The French Women’s Final had a Romanian newcomer Simona Halep. Her opponent was the veteran Russian Maria Sharapova.  Maria was serving at 4-3 in the third set.  Then, the double fault.  It was her 12th of the match.  For you non tennis players, that is essentially giving up (3) whole games.  Maria is a hall of fame caliber player.  So, this sheer volume in double faults is truly an enigma.  On the other hand, this has happened to Maria before!

We all know she plays tennis right handed.   Yet, her serve is a constant love hate relationship.  It is both a weapon and liability.  How can that be?  How could a world class athlete have a problem with a something as bio-mechanically natural as a serve?

Rumor has it that she is naturally a lefty.  In fact, she recently had a Facebook post playing ping pong.  Yes, she was playing lefty!  Want some evidence?  Check this video out with Ellen DeGeneres.

Maria Sharapova playing Ping Pong with Ellen

At some point, there was a decision to make her a right handed tennis player.  Clearly, it worked.  Yet, how can we get it right for other young athletes?

The Tarantula Test

We do a test with little kids.  I am shocked how often parents tell us “My child is right handed”.  Then, we lay out the premise.  “Place a tennis ball on the ground and pretend it is a giant tarantula.  The net is the rain forest.  When I say go pick up the tarantula and throw it as far as you can back into the rain forest!”  This always gets laughs.  It also gives us information.  We immediately learn what side the player THROWS a ball.  In addition, they have to use GROSS MOTOR skills to pick it up and throw it.  99% of the time, we can determine a child’s dominant throwing arm.  Every now and then, there is the 1% that seems to throw equally with both hands!  That 1% includes Luke Jensen!

The Public School Test

I am always in shock how public schools make an early determination on what hand a child should use to write.  The simplicity reminds me of how they used to cut off legs “just in case” it could go gangrene.  Their “classic” method is placing a pencil on the middle of a table.  Then they observe the child pick up the pencil.  Which ever hand they pick it up with, that is the hand they designate as their hand to write with for life!  I am not kidding either.  That is a typical preschool test.  Then, if the child is having writing problems, they simply assign them to occupational therapy.  Yes, you sense some sarcasm.  That is because there are so many reasons this methodology has a failure rate.  The major failure here is that writing is a FINE MOTOR SKILL.  Whereas, moving and grabbing have elements of GROSS MOTOR SKILLS.  Below, we will address that in even more detail

Throwing versus Writing

There are big differences in writing versus throwing.  Throwing is a BIG MUSCLE group skill set.  We call those GROSS MOTOR skills.  Anything that makes the body move as a whole is a GROSS MOTOR skill.  Running and jumping are also classified as GROSS MOTOR skills.  In tennis, forehands and backhands are in that classification as well.

A FINE MOTOR skill is generally use of the hands or feet independent of the body.  Writing is a classic FINE MOTOR SKILL.  You can also think about using the fingers independent of the body.  In tennis, a volley is often considered a FINE MOTOR skill even though you must use your body to get to the ball.

Cross Hand Dominance Defined

I invented the term to describe people that have GROSS MOTOR dominance on one side and FINE MOTOR dominance on the other side.  For example, a person might throw very well with their RIGHT HAND, but write effectively with their LEFT HAND.  I will now present a perfect example of this argument.  He is Mallorca’s own, Rafael Nadal.

Rafael Nadal

Rafa was hitting with two hands on forehands and backhands early in his junior career.  At some point, his coach “Uncle Toni” told Rafa to “pick a hand”.  Uncle Toni recommended Rafa become a lefty for tennis.  I think we can say this experiment was a big success.  Want to see the discussion? Click on this link. It is a whole interview with Rafa and Uncle Toni on his handedness!!

Interview with Uncle Toni

Can you imagine Rafa NOT being a lefty?  Would he have even excelled?  How many athletes start with the “wrong” hand?

Phil Mickelson

Even other sports have signs of left – right hand confusion.  Phil Mickelson is a natural right hander.  Yet, he is a left handed golfer.  Thanks to my PGA Professional friend Jim Beers, I know he warms up throwing a baseball with his caddie in the parking lot!  Yes, he throws with his right hand.

Golf Technique

The technique in golf is not that different than baseball.  In fact, hand dominance issues are the same.  This is why Phil Mickelson is such and outstanding left handed golfer.  He uses his dominant RIGHT HAND to PULL the club through.

The Relationship between Golf and Tennis

In 2010, my great friend and PGA professional Jim Beers and I presented at the Midwest USPTA Convention.  Our presentation, the Relationship between Golf and Tennis, was a full technical comparison between the two sports.  One of the largest conclusions we made was that the technique of a golf shot is more of a PULL than a PUSH.  Therefore, a GROSS MOTOR skill right hander should play golf LEFTY and tennis RIGHTY

Guess who else figured that out?

Ivan Lendl was famous for winning (7) majors.  He later became famous again for coaching Andy Murray to a Wimbledon victory.  He never won Wimbledon himself.  His joke was always “I am allergic to grass”.  One year, he refused to play Wimbledon and played golf during the fortnight.  Yes, he figured out the left – right golf conundrum.

How about the endless array of hall of fame baseball players?  How many of them threw right handed, but bat left handed?

Baseball

I grew up playing more baseball than tennis.  As a young Southern California youth, I probably played baseball (7) days a week.  I picked up tennis as an add-on game.  I always batted left handed.  Or maybe I didn’t.  I remember being a huge fan of Fred Lynn.  Fred Lynn was an awesome player with the Boston Redsox.  He threw left handed and bat left handed.  So, since he batted lefty I did too.  Yet, I couldn’t throw lefty.

It turns out there are tons of Hall of Fame caliber players that threw right handed and bat left handed.  One example was the great Rod Carew.  He was a fantastic hitter.  He bat left handed, but threw right handed.  He is in that amazing 3,000/1,000 club.  He had over 3,000 hits and 1,000 RBI’s lifetime.

George Brett was one of the best hitters in that era.  I never really rooted for him since he played for the Kansas City Royals. Although, the famous charge of Billy Martin in the “Pine Tar Incident” goes down as one of my favorites!

What a hitter.  He also threw right handed and bat left handed.

So what is with all this right handed throwers batting left handed?  It is all in the technique.

In baseball, the dominant hand (like Golf described above) is actually the bottom hand.  You ever see how modern hitting technique includes letting go of the top hand?  So, the dominant GROSS MOTOR hand should be in charge!  That means that the term batting “righty” is not really accurate.  A Right handed batter is in fact using their LEFT hand much more.

The Curious Case of Alison Biltz

You know how they say teachers learn much more from their students?  Alison Biltz is a highly talented Pre Med student at Fordham University.  I met her when she was about 11.  I was teaching her mom (Beth) tennis.  Beth asked if Alison could tag along.  Alison was definitely being “pushed” to try tennis.  Seven years later, she was a STATE OF OHIO high school tennis runner-up.  Alison was always an interesting student to teach because she had so many non-traditional talents.

She would describe how she wrote.  One hand was for the chalk board and another was for pencils!  She naturally threw a ball lefty.  We made sure she played tennis lefty for the serve relationship to throwing.  On the other hand (pun intended), she had a much better backhand.  She also could play right handed with no problem.  In fact, during her senior year, she had so many injuries in her left arm (wrist, arm and shoulder) she played right handed until the post season!  Luckily, she was advanced enough academically that no one stopped her from changing hands regularly.

Some final thoughts on Tennis

As we come full circle back to tennis, I would argue that it is one of the few sports where both hands are critical.  A GROSS MOTOR right hander should play tennis right handed.  Why?  So they can serve with the hand they throw.  Yet, a player with a two handed backhand will be using a TON of their left hand in this scenario.  Two handed backhands in tennis tend to USE their TOP hand much more than GOLF and BASEBALL!

Terminology & Teaching

Is the major problem in this discussion labeling?  Should we really call a right handed batter a righty?  Here is the funny part too.  A right handed batter stands on the left side of the plate!

I think the key to success is to have knowledge.  People need knowledge in sports too.  Be careful in labeling people right handed or left handed too quickly!  Also, be careful on labels that may not describe a technique.  People are all individuals.  You can have different hands to do different things.  I might even go out on a limb.

Out on a Limb

Dominant Right Hand throwers (GROSS MOTOR SKILL) should consider playing TENNIS right handed.  On the other hand, they should also consider playing GOLF and hitting a BASEBALL left handed.  This “dangling limb” theory is based on coaching technique.

David W. Smith

My old friend from Utah is used to be most known for his writings in tennis.  On the other hand, he is currently coaching a future LPGA player!  He was the Senior Editor at the highly acclaimed TennisOne.com tennis instructional website.  He is also a national proponent of teaching a two handed forehand.  His first tennis book, TENNIS MASTERY, goes into detail on this theory.  His premise allows children to develop bilateral handedness early in their career.

Carla Hannaford

I was tipped off to a real genius in teaching.  Carla Hannaford is well known in education circles.  On the other hand, I am surprised by how many supposed “neuroscience” people have never heard of her!

Carla has written quite a few ground breaking books.

Two that are fantastic are THE DOMINANCE FACTOR and SMART MOVES.  These are not books you have to read cover to cover.  Rather, you can read sections of chapters randomly.  Her premise in the DOMINANCE FACTOR was that all human beings have a DOMINANT side, but they don’t always synchronize well.  In other words, you might have a person with a DOMINANT right arm and DOMINANT left foot.  In most circumstances, these differences don’t matter. Yet, add elements of STRESS and there can be a FAILURE rate to these differences.  I am painfully paraphrasing.  I highly recommend these books.  I am fairly certain she has not received enough “acclaim” for her work.

What we might take away

I think my biggest conclusion is that we need to develop more human beings to use:

• BOTH hands
• BOTH feet
• BOTH eyes
• BOTH ears
• And BOTH hemispheres of their BRAIN!

That means allowing our children to practice all sorts of GROSS and FINE MOTOR skills using both sides of their body.  Long term, they will gravitate towards certain dominant traits.  Yet, as pointed out with my “Cross Hand Dominance Theory”, this may allow for our children to work out all their unique differences without too much influence.

As always, I really appreciate your time and energy you took to read this!

Copyright Walter Oden, July 2014, all rights reserved.  Please review global copyright notice on sidebar on home page.

The Happiness Project – Part I

How to quantify and gain awareness of your personal happiness

by Walter Oden

Prelude: 

I am generally a very happy person.  Yet, I have had some really low times.  We all face challenges in our lives. These challenges test our outlook on life.  Sometimes lows overshadow the highs.  I have been waiting to post on this topic for some time now.  I never seemed to find the right time.  I decided I would publish at a time I was REALLY HAPPY.  I also think I was nervous.  We are always wary when sharing some deep feelings.  Every holiday weekend is a time of reflection.  This weekend was no exception.  I thought about my dad often.  Yet, I really did have a wonderful weekend with my family.  Alas, happiness has motivated me to write about happiness.

Introduction

I originally wrote this article on New Year’s Day of 2012.  I actually shared it with a couple of friends at that time.   My dad was approaching the end of his life.   I was in a pretty dark state.  He had reached Advanced Parkinson’s Disease at that point.

I recently saw a poll result on general “Happiness”.  The report indicated that the average happiness of people was dropping dramatically.  One theory was that we are becoming too “technology” focused.  My theory is that “pressure” was taking over our lives.

Why Happiness is Important

Ask any parent what they want for their children.  Most will answer “I want them to be happy”.  What about your own life?  How do you want to breathe your last breath?  We have all seen the quotes describing what we will be thinking when we get older. They all have the same theme.  You will never say “I wish I spent one more day at the office”.  End game happiness is the goal. If we can learn how to do it, we can teach our children.  Then we will fulfill our mission.

New Year’s Resolutions

I make the same New Year’s resolution each year; Focus on happy.  This may sound like a cliché.  On the other hand, who hasn’t become a big cliché?  I am considered to be a “Tweener” by many.  I am not talking about the tennis shot between the legs.  A “Tweener” is term used around social circles to describe a state in your life.  If you have  people OLDER and YOUNGER relying on you for their well being, you are a TWEENER.  You also understand the special pressure that goes with this label.

My History

I have a beautiful loving family and my health.  I have a job I value.  Yet, the years of pressure from my dad’s health, debt, the economy and shear work load has added up.  In fact, it has robbed me of pleasure over the years.  It has robbed me of enjoying what is really important.  I have even occasionally described myself as unhappy.

Being weighed down by negatives is probably what is called “clinical depression”.  Do you see problems as bigger than they really are? This kind of negative stress has a big impact.  It affects you, your family and everyone around you.

My dad’s illness first became prevalent about seven years ago.  The first “hit” was when he lost everything he owned.  That became the least of our issues.  We were fighting so hard for his well being.  We wanted any glimpse of hope.   He lost his fight during January of 2013.  During his decline, I felt helpless most of the time.  Stress + Helplessness + Money Woes + Responsibility and you get one giant ball of unhappy.

Yet, I am going to hypothesize a strange concept; Unhappiness is a mirage.

Why do the Project?

I would try to go see my dad in the nursing home for long visits about once per week.  On other days I would pop in and out.  I was always guilty I couldn’t be there more.  He told me on New Year’s 2012 how “unhappy” he was.   During our visits it was very hard to focus on any positives.  My dad had not come to terms with his plight.  He was also very aware of what is coming.  My dad had dementia that kept getting worse.  He was very scared.  If I tried to bring up the past, he resisted it.  This was his defense mechanism.  It was almost like if he remembered the past, he got more depressed.  He wished it was the past and it wasn’t.

A Call to Action

And now for another cliché.  How do we live in the “now”?  Do you have a habit of waiting for things to happen to you?.  Are you always looking for that change that will make you truly happy?  Could more money or a better house make you happy?  Maybe, but not necessarily.

Yet, if we don’t get to happy right now, we’ll miss it.  That is because happy isn’t a moment in time.  It is time itself.  Having “time” is what happy is.  My dad was out of time.  He didn’t have much happy left.  He missed the opportunity to embrace his time when he was happiest.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and say “I guess what I used to have was happy”.  I missed it.  I don’t want to ignore what is happy.

The Concept

I was trying to conceptualize this plight in the last couple of years.  I wondered if happiness was simply a state of mind.  I wondered if it was a state of awareness.  Could I be happy and not see it?  It reminds me of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.  You go through life and can’t realize how lucky you are to be you.

By the way, I included the imbedded link above to also answer a favorite trivia item of mine.  Ever wonder how the characters Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street were developed?

So I said to myself “I wonder if we can define happiness in something that is NOT SUBJECTIVE.  How could we create a definition of “Happiness” in terms of something that is totally OBJECTIVE.  Could I take a math approach to happiness?  How about an accounting approach to happiness?  Could I tally things and record them on a balance sheet?  Could I create the financial statements of life?

The project

I am about to show the reader why I quit being a CPA.  I have to explain some basic accounting to the reader.  It will take you about 3 seconds to pass out with boredom.  Please trudge through it, it matters.

Basic financial statements include a Balance Sheet and Income Statement.  The Balance Sheet lists all your Assets, Liabilities and Owner’s Equity (Sometimes called Retained Earnings).

The Income Statement (Sometimes called the P&L) is a picture of income and expenses during a given time period.  That period is usually a calendar year.

This concept has not changed in accounting in a hundred years.  Even Ebenezer Scrooge understood this.  Although, his accounting methodologies included slave labor that took food out of the mouth of Tiny Tim.

If you are still awake, you may be asking why do we need to know this material?  The answer is what I call the “Happiness Project”

Getting Started – Your Balance Sheet

We need to build financial statements to your life.  We will begin with a Balance Sheet. Start by listing all of your assets.  These are not just things you OWN!  These are things that are positive to your life.  Some examples include:

1) A wife that loves me

2) Three very different kids that love their dad.

3) Own a home

4) A job I like

Then you need to list your liabilities.  These are the things that are potentially negatives.

1) Debt

2) House has huge flaws that can only be fixed with lots of money

3) Job requires long hours that take away from my family

4) Father in nursing home with incurable disease.

5) Wavering belief in higher power/purpose

Finally, you need to list what positives or negative you NET after your years.  That is the statement of retained earnings

1) Fairly youthful looking from years on tennis courts

2) Home is worth more than I owe from years of paying mortgage

Your Current Year – The Income Statement

Now we need to build an Income Statement.  This will require daily recording of Income (Things that make you happy) and Expenses (Things that block your happiness).  You need to religiously record this data every day for 30 days.  Record everything that made you happy, especially the simple stuff.

Monday

Income

1) Kids came running to door yelling “daddy!” and attacked me .  They squeezed me dragged me inside.

2) Had more than (3)  beers in the fridge

3) Great dinner waiting on stove top

Expense

1) Got into a conflict with co- worker today

2) Cash flow went negative today

3) Leak in pipe in basement appeared today

Working list and results

It is impossible to create all these statements in one sitting.  Our subconscious does an incredible job blocking things out.  You may be adding to your balance sheet as you develop your income statement. That is totally fine.

Analysis of your statements

You can have a good year or bad year (income statement).  The key is to focus on the income.  Why?

This is YOUR HAPPINESS PROJECT summarized!

Take all the INCOME items you listed for 30 days.  Put them on a single sheet. That list is your roadmap to happiness. It’s kind of like how you value a business.  Sometimes, you just want to know how much revenue the business earns each year.

Happiness is a cumulative conglomeration of happy moments all rolled up into a single ball.

This project forces you to be aware of your happy moments.  Happiness does not guarantee a life devoid of unhappiness or negatives.  In fact, the key to this project is being able to accept negatives and SEPARATE them from the HAPPY.  Focusing on the happy, is merely a matter of getting organized.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This movie starred Jim Carrey,  Kate Winslet & Kirsten Dunst.  It got mixed reviews.  I thought it was brilliant.  The premise was that we had invented a way of erasing memories.  In fact, you could erase any BAD memories and eliminate your sadness.  The movie created a hypothesis through its story.  A person’s happiness is eternally linked to all moments in your life.  Eliminate the unhappy and you risk eliminating the happy.

Life experience, much like our income statement, includes both Happy and Unhappy moments. Our project allows you to focus on the happy without ever “erasing” the lessons learned from the unhappy.

Conclusions & Part II

This project will NOT add happiness to your life.  This project will not eliminate sadness or disappointment.  The bigger plan is to make you aware of what you already have.  That happiness is a state of mind.  It is a state of awareness.  We can either choose to be happy or not be happy.  I am choosing happy.  We will explore methods for improving your financial statements of life in PART II.

My Dad in 1968

Copyright Walter Oden & “I Have an Idea” –  January 2012 – All rights reserved.  Please review the global copyright notice on the sidebar.