MentorWords

For my business blog today I wrote about a few characteristics of leadership, one of which is the ability to set aside concerns about whether you are approved of or not. This issue of approval getting is not just an issue for would-be leaders, however. It is an issue at the heart of many personal development struggles.

It is neither surprising nor bad that we seek the approval of others. Our earliest socialization training involves learning which behaviors lead to approval and praise, and which lead to embarrassment and pain. Every well-behaved four-year-old has learned to value the approval of others who are important to them.

By the time we reach adolescence, our search for approval is even more aggressive than it was in early childhood, though it may not look like it from the parents’ perspective. This is because the adolescent psyche reaches to the peer group for purposes of defining identity, and therefore, approval. What the peer group approves of may be quite different than what the parents expect. Yet peer approval is so important that most teenagers will risk parental frustration and censure in exchange.

Ideally we reach adulthood with a strong sense of identity and the commensurate ability to both meet societal expectations and follow our own moral compass. But what often remains is a niggling inner voice that constantly worries about whether or not our actions are being met with the approval of others. A more superficial representation of this problem is the worry about whether or not one is liked. Let’s face it; once we’ve spent 20-odd years achieving identity and socialization goals through the pursuit of approval, it’s kind of hard to expect that the desire for approval is simply going to evaporate.

As I said at the beginning of this article, the search for approval is not bad. But it can certainly get in the way. Most of us can put aside our desire to be liked when standing up for a significant moral issue. At those times it is easy to differentiate between those whose approval we seek and those whose approval would be meaningless or worse. But life presents us with a lot more ambiguity than clarity.

When the desire to be liked turns into a need to be liked, the variable of being liked enters into critical thinking. Let’s look at this in terms of decision making. Good decision making requires three categories of thought. The first category is the ability to define the problem, what you would like to be different, and what the effects of the problem are. The second category of thought is the consideration of the causes and effects of various solutions, and an ultimate choice of solution. A lot of decision-making consciousness ends at this second step, but in fact, our minds continue to process our decisions one step further. The third category of thought in decision making – a category which we should make conscious rather than unconscious – is the time during which we measure the impact of the decision. When one of the measurements of our decision is whether or not others will still like us once we have made the decision, that variable alone can undo all of the good thinking that came before.

When this occurs, self-esteem is damaged. I don’t subscribe to the love-thyself school of self-esteem. It doesn’t matter how many times you look yourself in the mirror and say “I love you,” or how often you write affirming phrases to yourself in a journal, because self-esteem does not come from those activities. Self esteem comes from the confidence that you are making good decisions most of the time, and that you are using consistent internalized guidance to do so. Self esteem comes from recognizing that your contribution to the world is meaningful, from believing you have had a more positive effect on others than negative, from the awareness that you consistently give your best effort to whatever you have agreed to do, and from the commitment to lifelong self-improvement.

Sometimes the most meaningful contribution we can make – or the better of two bad choices – also causes discomfort to, and therefore the disapproval of, others. Sometimes the choice we must make meets with disagreement, either because it conflicts with another’s self-interest, or because they see it from a different vantage point or embrace a different philosophy. Sometimes giving our best effort is perceived as a threat. It is entirely possible for two people to be right and yet disagree with one another completely. When these conditions occur, the need to be liked can interfere with the need to do the right thing. Loss of self esteem comes when we fail ourselves.

Of course, the good opinions of others matter to us, and they should. But our good opinion of ourselves, based on this criteria, is ultimately more important. People who are friends, respected colleagues, and even worthy rivals will continue to hold a respectful opinion of you when they see that you are being driven by the desire to do the right thing. So the next time you are struggling to make a good decision, achieve a personal growth goal, or persevere through a difficult situation, consider whether the desire for approval is getting in the way of your ability to be successful. It’s not an easy self-analysis to do, but it is a worthy one to practice until you get it right.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

For years I lived 1300 miles from my family, all of us turning into middle-aged adults and senior citizens without the benefit of watching one another go through the process. So when we moved  back home I knew that a priority would be to spend as much time with my mom and dad as possible.

Which is difficult. Because at nearly 80 my dad is still riding his motorcycle across the country and my mom (at 70) is a computer networking whiz (and former psychology and theology teacher – go figure) running around downtown Chicago in her biker boots.

But last week I told my mom I’d spend the day driving her around, since she needed to do a number of jobs out in the suburbs and she doesn’t like to drive. Of course, she was working the whole time, which meant that her cell phone rang incessantly and she kept checking email. It was while listening to one of her conversations that I learned my latest lesson from mom.

She was speaking to an employee who was upset about an equipment delivery and training schedule. Mom told her (patiently) a few times to wait to set up the training until the equipment was running properly, and clearly the employee had difficulty with this instruction. Finally the employee raised her voice. I could see from mom’s face that she was a little exasperated. But then she did two things of interest. She visibly calmed herself – an action that showed in her face and shoulders – and she asked, “Nina, is there something else going on that I don’t know about that’s upsetting you?”

Immediately the conversation took a different direction. Nina confessed she had been approached about a higher paying job and had to consider it, mom encouraged her not to feel guilty about making decisions that were important for her life, and they both agreed to wait and talk when mom was in the office. Then, they resolved the equipment and training issue as the non-issue it had always been.

How many times have you been in a conversation that escalated into tension and you weren’t sure why?  It’s very common to either think the escalation is because the other person is angry or irritated with us, or to become irritated with the other person because they are being emotional.  But instead of becoming defensive or impatient, mom removed herself from the emotional game that was beginning to play out, then made an inquiry that demonstrated interest in and care for the other person.

Another lesson I learned from mom – this one probably 30 years ago – was “honey, it’s not always about you.”  If everyone could master that lesson, there would be a lot less misunderstanding in the workplace (not to mention at home and everywhere else).  Sudden inexplicable tension has only a 50::50 chance of being about the situation taking place. Chances are great that the person escalating the situation is upset about something else. If you take a deep breath, remove yourself from the emotion of the moment, and relax your muscles, there’s a good chance the drama can be dampened immediately.

Once you’re no longer emotionally involved, it’s easier to have empathy for the other person. That simple question asked by my mom, “is there something else going on that I don’t know about,” showed the other person respect while simultaneously letting them know they were not responding appropriately to the situation at hand. It was a powerful question I encourage you to steal for your own use (as I am planning to do). 

 As much as we aspire to be consummate professionals, we are all complex individuals who bring our entire selves to work. This is a good thing, because bringing less than our whole self to work would probably mean that the best parts – the creativity, compassion, excitement, and quirkiness – would get left behind at home. But the potential downside is that we also bring our worries about our mortgages, futures, love lives, and children.

So the next time someone is having a particularly human moment in the middle of a business environment, try following these steps. Take a deep breath. Relax your muscles. Then try to understand – really understand- the other person. Who knows – maybe they’ll turn around and do the same thing for you the next time you wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

(c) 2009. Andrea M. Hill

There’s a lot of talk about how everything is changing. But popular analysis and reflection seems to stop just below the dermis of the issue, talking endlessly about jobs loss, the credit crunch, foreclosures, and the anticipated stimulus package. Not that these aren’t important issues, but given that we live in a 24-hour news cycle, why don’t these reporters begin to reflect on some of the deeper issues?

For instance, greed. We talk about greedy bankers and the greedy folks on Wall Street, and there’s no doubt that a culture of entitlement has sprouted from the cracks of Manhattan’s sidewalks and curbs. But what about the rest of us? One of the biggest drivers of our current economic crisis isn’t Wall Street pay scales, but the average homeowner buying not-so-average homes with no-money-down mortgages and inaccurately “stated” incomes. Another problem has been the need to purchase things like RVs, snowmobiles, and large screen TVs using home-equity loans taken against those no-equity homes – creating huge equity shortfalls when the housing market eventually (inevitably) crashed.

What about knowledge? How many people have been investing money in their 401(k)s without taking the time to understand the pros and cons of the stock market? How many people rode the carnival ride of increasing home values without taking time to study the historical cycles of real estate? How is it that we are willing to pay for $250 tennis shoes and $1,000 hand bags, but expect to receive quality news for free?

Business owners and executives surfed the wave of a strong economy, but most failed to use those flush times to invest in infrastructure, reduce debt, or restructure to prepare for the inevitable shift in economic tides (how many metaphors do I have going now?). Of deeper concern is how many business executives have failed to keep pace with changing technology and consumer behavior.

Just 24 months ago the big forecast was that we would be 10 million laborers short of demand for workers by 2010, due to the en masse retirement of baby boomers and the seemingly endless upward trend of the economy bolstered by significant development in China and India. Now we have lost over 2 million jobs in the U.S., job losses are mounting in Europe and Asia, and consumers all over the world seem to be hunkering down for a protracted recession.

I do believe we are in for a long recession, but I don’t believe we are repeating the Great Depression, nor do I buy in to the idea that we are on the verge of world collapse. I do believe that we must change both our habits and our expectations to fit the demands of a world that is transforming before our eyes, not magically, but as a direct result of our behavior to date.

So here, in no particular order, is my prescription for preparing for the change in which we are now embroiled.

1. Scale back. It’s time to reassess how much we need to be happy. The past decade has witnessed a love affair with magazines like Real Simple and a return to hand craft, but we simply acquired those tastes as part of our overall acquisition frenzy. Reassessing how much we need to buy won’t solve the crisis at retail – but the crisis at retail is self-made. Our economy in the past 25 years has grown almost entirely on the impetus of consumers who thought we needed exponentially more than our parents and grandparents required to be happy.
2. Prioritize. We had the scale-back discussion as a family over two years ago. We decided to get out of our ridiculously expensive house, buy a house for cash in a part of the country that had more favorable cost of living and economic opportunity, and be more conservative in all of our purchases. With one exception. We agreed that it was a priority to consume organic food, which continues to cost significantly more than chemical-laden supermarket fare. We agreed that to do this we would reduce our restaurant eating to one time per month and that we would grow as much of our own food as we could. Are we spending more money on food? Yes. Are we still scaling back? Certainly. Each person and family must decide what the priorities are and invest accordingly. It would be an added bonus if we would all try to make the world a better place in the process.
3. Volunteer. Of course you should volunteer because it’s the right thing to do. The nice thing about doing the right thing morally or ethically, however, is that it is often the right thing to do economically. If every citizen between the ages of 16 and 68 would volunteer just one (1) hour of their time per month, we would produce over 288,000 man-years of volunteer time. How many economic problems and government funded efforts could we solve and surpass with this most marginal of volunteer rates?
4. Reinvest in learning and knowledge. Fox News, MSNBC, and most newspapers do not represent knowledge. At the very best they represent information. If you want to improve your economic standing – to say nothing of your quality of life – invest in learning from reputable sources. How do you find them? First, you go back to your prioritization list and you decide that you’re willing to pay for knowledge – because all of this spewing of opinion and reportage on the internet – including this blog – are not editorially or peer-reviewed, and therefore must be suspect of containing significant bias and error. Peer reviewed journals, published books, and independent newspapers (i.e., not Gannett) are good sources. Make sure you draw from competing philosophies too. For instance, if you’re going to read Time Magazine, make sure you also read the Economist, Reason, or Human Events.
5. Save – which includes paying off credit cards, investing in retirement funds, and buying your necessities with cash (or with a credit card you pay off monthly). This is not to be confused with stuffing your savings in a pillow case. This is to suggest that our tendency to use credit cards as a form of income has been predictably damaging. The stock markets are no more an indication of the overall economy now than they ever were, and they will come back. Cash directed to future needs in the form of stocks and mutual funds, and held as ready cash in the form of savings accounts and CDs, will help rebalance the economy away from retail dependence and into long-term viability.
6. Be forward-looking. My advice to business owners and managers has consistently been to look into the future and figure out how to meet changing needs, but this is solid advice to individuals as well. One of several reasons we moved back to the Midwest was that we didn’t want our grandkids to be rooted in a region where water disputes are likely to drive the cost of living past the tolerable point. Is that drastic? Maybe. Maybe not. The point is, we all have a responsibility to look to the future and make life choices based on what we see there (using real knowledge and a willingness to scale back and save, of course). What will be required of you in terms of technical skill in the near term? Where and how will you retire? How will a return to $4/gallon gas affect you, and how can you take advantage of shifts in energy production? How will ubiquitous broad-band change the way we work and play? Since we can’t put any 10 economists in a room and have them agree on anything, you might as well make your own forecast (using reliable – and likely contradictory – information, of course).

My personal prediction is that we will see economic improvement by the end of 2009. I expect the economy to remain sluggish for a few years, but we will all survive it. However, we have seen a series of bubbles-and-bursts these past 15 years. Do we want to go through that again? Already some financial wunderkind is trying to figure out what the next crazy money-making scheme should be. Let them. We don’t have to be silly enough to fall in bed with every sexy investment strategy we meet. Sometimes it’s nice to know we’ve become mature enough to simply look . . . then pass on by.

(c) 2009. Andrea M. Hill

Isolation from feedback is one of the most damaging aspects of being an independent business owner/operator or senior executive. In the case of the independent, feedback is difficult find due to secluded working conditions. In the case of the senior executive, feedback is difficult to come by because people frequently will not offer it, and when they do, it can be hard to tell if they are acting in your best interests or for a personal political objective.

So people in both situations go home and talk about work to their spouse or a trusted confidante. Though such trusted others are undoubtedly of benefit in terms of personal insight, they cannot provide feedback about work habits, skills, decision-making, or interaction with customers, vendors and other business associates. There is no perfect replacement for this lack, but there is something each of us can do to become more objective about ourselves. When we do this, we can give ourselves feedback that cannot be obtained from others.

Two important steps each objectivity-seeker should implement immediately are goal setting and goal review. We are not speaking of broad goals in this context, but rather, specific behavioral or activity goals. For instance, before making a phone call to a prospective customer, write down on the top of your notebook what do I expect to accomplish on this call, and what steps must I take during the call in order to be successful? Immediately upon ending the call, review the goal and the steps you had planned to take and grade yourself on your performance.

This can also be done prior to engaging in a potentially combative situation. Before stepping into the other person’s place of business or picking up the phone, carefully write down your goals for the transaction. In addition to asking what must I accomplish during this conversation, and what steps will I take in order to be successful, make sure you add how do I wish to behave in order to be successful?

You can use this type of goal setting and review to plan what you wish to accomplish at the beginning and end of each day, to plan your approach to learning a new business skill, to assess your demonstration of a particular skill, or to evaluate a decision-making experience. The initial deliberateness of this process may seem time-consuming and forced. However, if you stick with it you will find that you are able to make mini-goals on the fly — even in the face of surprise conflict or rapidly changing conditions.

The key to achieving objective self-feedback is to evaluate everything for which you set a goal immediately upon completion of the task. The act of comparing your performance to pre-planned intentions forces objective analysis and the result is the type of candid feedback we would like to receive from a trusted friend who only wants to see us succeed.

(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

Now I write, but for more than two decades I was the one responsible for the message, and the people who wrote and designed worked for me. Over the course of those years, I learned just how difficult it is to convey a need in such a way that everyone on the team could wrap both the mind and the emotions around it. In most cases, what passes for brand or message direction is insufficient, and the people who pay the price are the ones who are trying to write the copy, develop the graphics, and buy the media.

In time, I became good at conveying messages effectively. Once that happened, I was able to experience the greatness of talented copywriters and designers. Most people who enter the field of business media have a passion for it, and they thrive in an environment that offers great direction and welcomes not only their talent but also their input.

One type of business media personality, however, has bemused and confused me for my entire career. Sometimes it’s an art director, sometimes an account executive – at any rate, someone possessing authority. They produce a product that is superficially sexy, glossy, purports to be edgy, and is resolutely mundane. No amount of information regarding the intended customer’s needs, wants, or perspectives influences this person’s design direction. Customer awareness is not their concern.

I have theorized many times over the years about what would cause an otherwise talented individual to so completely ignore the customer perspective. I ultimately concluded that the individuals in question were working in a customer segment that bored them. Maybe they were serving jewelry store owners, or video store owners, or moms with small kids, when what they really wanted to be selling was haute couture or Hollywood.

Today I realized that my conclusion was wrong. I spent the day doing fashion trend analysis, and I encountered more mindless, customer unaware, superficially sexy, glossy, and mundane advertising in four hours than I could stomach. If the people actually selling haute couture and Hollywood are behaving in the same way as the people who I thought were behaving that way because they wanted to be selling haute couture or Hollywood, there must be a deeper reason.

I had to take a break from the fashion, so I picked up a business book and stumbled immediately upon a different theory as to why so many marketing communications make sense only to their creators. The book is Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes, and the author is Mark Penn. Penn suggests that many marketing communications don’t make sense because they are based on the faulty premise that consumers are irrational, “misguided scatterbrains” who don’t know what they want or whether or not the promotion they are experiencing is good or bad.

According to this premise the egotistical marketer designs for his or her own pleasure, and any communication that is done solely for the self is just another form of self-abuse (to use a polite – if somewhat Catholic – euphemism). If nobody else is actually involved, then it stands to reason that nobody else actually feels anything.

Unfortunately, the public plays a role in this ongoing farce. It’s a modern-day Emperor’s New Clothes. If you will recall, the Emperor in the Hans Christian Anderson story goes to a pair of con artists for new clothing. The con artists tell the Emperor that the fabric from which they will make his new clothes is so fine and rare that only people of exceptional refinement and intelligence can see it. The Emperor sends his valet to evaluate the clothes before the final fitting. The valet, unable to see the clothes himself, will not admit that he is not refined or intelligent enough to see them. So he proclaims their beauty in his report to his boss. The Emperor is also unable to see the clothing and unable to disclose (pardon the pun) his lack of vision. So he walks naked through the streets, with everyone in the kingdom unwilling to acknowledge their Emperor’s nakedness for fear of exposing their own frailty. Only a child has the courage to shout out the obvious fact that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all.

I don’t watch much television, but a few weeks ago I was watching a movie with my teenage and young adult kids. After watching a few completely incomprehensible advertisements (quick disclaimer – I also saw a lot of great advertising that night), I finally asked my kids to explain what the ads meant. Their response was that they had no idea. My kids are hardly sheltered, and mom-ish pride aside, they seem to be pretty hip.

“Do you think anyone understands these ads?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” replied my son. “They’re just stupid.” Sentiments with which my daughter agreed.

A 30-second ad during American Idol costs $620,000. To run the same ad during Desperate Housewives costs $324,000. Survivor is a bargain at $296,000. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I have a hard time understanding the wholesale waste of those dollars on advertising that discounts the intelligence of the viewers and invites us all to participate in pretending that the Emperor is wearing clothes.

There’s really nothing to be done about it, because for every bright, intelligent, customer-focused advertising director there will be a self-centered, superficial Hollywood wanna-be with vapid ideas. The only value in this observation is for each one of us. When we are tempted to believe that we are smarter than our customers, when we find ourselves thinking that our customers are boring, or irritating, or simply pedestrian, there is a very good chance that we are about to waste a lot of money. Our own.

As Mark Penn points out in his book, the average Joe is actually pretty smart, making intelligent decisions about how to spend their money and regarding who deserves their loyalty. We discount our customers at our own peril.

(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

The February 25, 2008 issue of Newsweek offers a frightening little insight into the new world of families and child rearing in an innocuous article regarding airbrushing. It seems that parents of grade-schoolers are increasingly requesting airbrush services on their little wonders’ class portraits.

I have distinct memories of my class portraits. I didn’t like brushing my hair, and all of my photos between the 2nd and 4th grades betrayed me with a subtle little lump just above and behind my left ear. In 1st grade I got chickenpox, and had recovered sufficiently enough to return to school – just before the lady from Timeless Images showed up with her tripod and green rug. Some people struggle with remembering when they got the chickenpox, but I only have to consult my 1st grade class portrait. There was the year I got glasses (4th grade), the year I had stitches in my chin (5th), and the year I was first allowed to wear mascara (6th). An entire personal history translated with clarity through my awkward class photos.

In the Newsweek article a Legacy Photographer named Kelly Price said, “People want their kids to look perfect rather than teach them to appreciate their flaws.” She goes on to say that she fears if she asked for her 12-year-old daughter’s photo to be retouched, she would be sending a message of insufficiency to that child. The article quotes a psychoanalyst named Susie Orbach as saying “The rise in airbrushing is a byproduct of a culture consumed with the idea that the body is perfectible.”

When my now 23-year-old daughter first realized she had buck teeth – the kind of sudden awareness that can crush a 10-year-old – I was able to show her pictures of me at the same age and with the same buck teeth. Then I showed her my class portrait from 8th grade – the one with the braces and the headgear. That – and a promise that head gear was rarely employed any longer – comforted her. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that she also saw the massive pimple just over my right eye in that same 8th grade photo – a reassurance that one day she, too, would enjoy pimple-free skin again.

I am disconcerted. I’m not sure if it’s the matter of being a part of a society that is “consumed with the idea that the body is perfectible,” or if my concern is related to the idea of what a perfect body should be. We live in a culture that idolizes the 15-year-old female form – no hips, and an ability to show 6″ of flesh below the navel without disclosing the presence of pubic hair. When I was a teenager it was socially risky to be larger than a size 7. Our children are under far greater pressure today, not only to be a much smaller size, but also to be self-conscious at a much younger age.

Our role as parents is to help our children see beauty in all its forms and to recognize their own inherent beauty – inclusive of any temporary or permanent perceived flaws. When we cave in to society’s superficial notions of what makes an attractive person we relinquish our ability to be authentic. A terrible sacrifice.

Many parents would assert that they ask for airbrushing in an attempt to protect their children from discomfort and dissatisfaction. But is this truly a service to them? Sparing our children the experience of discomfort only delays the time when they must confront it head on. Such delay can rob them of the skills necessary to face their frailties with humor or to muster the courage and strength to recover from a disappointment.

I remember scheduling my Senior Portrait. I was acutely conscious of how expensive it would be, and I asked my mom why the photos cost so much. Her reply was that, unlike my class portraits in years past, the senior photo would be taken in a studio with special lighting and photo retouching services. Not having any prior experience of that type of photography, I questioned the value of spending so much money. Her response? “Oh honey, won’t it be fun to have just one photo that makes you look like someone in a magazine ad? Something you’ll always hold on to because it’s your last class photo?”

It was. And I did. But in all the years since, I have gotten much more value out of those years of class photos that showed me precisely as I was.

(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

You’ve read Lee Siegel, the New York-based critic who writes for Harpers, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic (again). He writes erudite, prickly prose on the subject of American culture – or what counts for it. At one point the New York Times referred to him as “one of the most eloquent and acid-tongued critics in the country.” In a nation that enjoys a bit of battering of our neighbor — and which lives by the adage if you’re so smart why ain’t you rich? — even the most liberal-minded of us get both an intellectual thrill and an ignoble shiver reading his work.

Though I highly recommend him for his wit and range, his personal story is a cautionary tale. In 2006 he was suspended from his role at The New Republic for, well, what? Misleading comments, I believe it was. Siegel didn’t break any rules, nor certainly any laws. But he had established an alter-ego that attacked negative commentators on his blog. This alter-ego, known as sprezzatura, was an ardent defender of Siegel, Siegel’s wit, and Siegel’s shining intelligence. OK, so what, right? He’s a little insecure.

The situation was disturbing, but not for the reasons most people pointed to. Most commonly, people expressed their disgust at how stupid it was, how egotistical it was, and ultimately, at what a baby Siegel was. The last comment approaches the reason it was appropriate that Siegel was temporarily suspended.

So what if the critic can’t take criticism — that’s a weakness that hounds far too many people to make it interesting. The problem was that he was hypocritical at a level that was a betrayal of his true audience. The role of critic suggests intellectual rigor and standards. Critical thinking is the careful analysis of whatever it is we are evaluating, getting past emotions, reactions, historical baggage, psychology, bias, enculturation — all of the muck that clouds our thinking and prevents us from seeing reality in the clearest possible light. Not that most modern critics actually perform that role for us, but we wish they would. We need them to. And Siegel is capable of operating at the highest levels of intellectual criticism.

Why do I care about something that that is, by American standards, ancient history? Because of something a friend of mine said tonight. My friend Mark and I were talking about billboards in the UK, and how much we appreciate them. In the United States, billboard writers obviously go through a process that, if you were a fly on the wall, would sound something like this:

Ad guy 1: Dude, we need another billboard for our very difficult client.

Ad guy 2: Damn. Didn’t we just finish a bunch of billboards for them?

Ad guy 1: Yeah. I hate doing billboards.

Important advertising note. Billboards must be able to deliver a message in less than 3 seconds at roughly 55 mph. Ad guys hate to be responsible for traffic deaths. Well, we assume so anyway.

Ad guy 1: OK, what’s the simplest way we can say “get your new muffler at Dan’s Auto Haus?”

Ad guy 2: Can’t just we say that?

Ad guy 1: No. People don’t read that fast. We still have to have room for their website and maybe a phone number.

Ad guy 2: OK, how about, “Mufflers. Dans. www.dansautohaus.com.”

Ad guy 1: They might think we’re advertising, like, mittens or something.

Ad guy 2: It’s summer.

Ad guy 1: Whatever. I don’t think it will work.

Ad guy 2: OK, what about, “Noisy car? Dan’s Mufflers.”

Ad guy 1: They’ll think it’s just a muffler shop. Dan won’t like that.

You get the picture. Eventually the ad guys consult a reference book for children’s writing and choose three words from the kindergarten list, and that’s what passes for advertising in this country.

In the UK, billboards are vexing. Not only are you trying not to wipe out the left side of your car every time you turn the corner and jumping when people pop out at you from the wrong side of the street, but your head is swimming with the last three billboards you read that you still haven’t made sense of. UK billboards cater to the thinkers in their society, which they obviously assume are many, given how democratic they are with their puzzling advertising.

Are American advertising firms dumbing everything down because Americans are lazy thinkers, or are Americans lazy thinkers because we are confronted — no, assaulted — by a constant barrage of stupidity? Please, don’t try to answer that – it’s a chicken-and-egg thing.

It’s important to read Lee Siegel because he’s capable of – and for the most part, delivers – criticism filled with intellectual honesty. I’m pretty sure I never want him to take on one of my publications, because as thick-skinned as I am, I’ve probably not evolved to the point where I’m ready to read his take on my work without a therapist by my side. Still, he challenges his readers to intellectual debate. This is an experience to which we have become unaccustomed. Siegel doesn’t cater to lazy thinkers. Indeed, he writes as if he expects us to be intelligent.

Lee Siegel should be completely forgiven for his past lapse (and yes, I realize that I am the one bringing it up again, but I couldn’t figure out another way to make my point). Seriously. If we’re being honest, we can all think of foolish things we have done that disgraced us but didn’t add any further damage to the human condition.

But Siegel does have a responsibility that is very similar to that of any parent. We know that parents must set a good example for their children. Parental example is something children count on to feel confident. Parental example is the ballast each child needs while bobbing about in the wakes of peer pressure, demoralizing teachers, and Ad guys 1 and 2.

Those of us who seek a more intellectual discourse are dependent on cultural leaders – of all types – to maintain a certain quality of critical thought. This is a completely reciprocal responsibility (did you think you were off the hook?). The only way to create a rigorous intellectualism for ourselves is to give it first to others, and by doing so we are able to receive the thing we want. That’s right – intellectualism is not a zero sum game. The only way we can have it is to give it away. That requires dialogue. Which requires risk. Which was Siegel’s failure. Shared by the rest of us, though most of us don’t have to fail in such a public forum.

Perhaps Ad guys 1 and 2 are not really ready for this. But I suggest we give them the benefit of the doubt. If enough of us gave intellectual discourse away – trusting everyone around us not to be lazy thinkers – perhaps we would discover ourselves, once again, a country that thinks. I’d wager it would do a lot more for our economy than another cut in the Fed Funds Rate or a bunch of $300 rebates.

(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

Erma Bombeck was a genius. Whenever I am seeking a wise bon mot – particularly as it relates to popular culture – I turn to her. I did so today, and as usual, I found what I was looking for.

“Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip.”

There was a time when famous people were famous for doing something (New York society columns notwithstanding). Now we have K-Fed and Paris Hilton – both of whose entire claim to fame rests on their ability to generate gossip. The Hollywood gossip trade is big business. Just yesterday I heard my six-year-old say – with no small measure of authority – that Jennifer Lopez was having twins. Our neighbor down the street is pregnant, and I’m pretty sure our little one hasn’t even noticed. But she knows about J-Lo. And her television time is limited to 30 minutes each day!

My 22-year-old was sitting at the computer and said, “Good grief. Why don’t they just leave Britney alone? Can’t they see she’s going to kill herself if they keep this up?” I walked over and looked at the computer monitor, and sure enough, People Magazine’s web-site was loaded, delivering the by-the-minute Britney news they make so much money on.

I know it was kind of harsh, but I had to make a point. I said, “Yes, but it’s your fault.”

“What?” She started laughing, shaking her head. Just another crazy weird thing for mom to say.

“No, I mean it. It’s your fault.”

“Right. And I assume you’re going to explain how it could possibly be my fault.”

“Because you clicked on that headline. And everyone who clicks on that headline tells People Magazine they want more news about that poor girl.”

“But there are millions of us looking at Britney news!”

My point. What a strange place for a culture to be. Our compulsion for bad news fuels an entire industry made up of photographers, print magazines, cable magazines, and internet sites. Any overly aggressive photographer with a camera and no need for sleep can earn upwards of $300,000 per year taking pictures of pop stars leaving Vons with their weekly groceries. When did America notice that the writers were on strike? Not until the strike undermined the awards shows and all those great pictures of stars on the red carpet wearing designer gowns. Why didn’t America notice? Because we’re so busy watching reality TV, which doesn’t require writers (at least most don’t). Why are we watching reality TV? Because it gives us a chance to watch other people behave badly and become stars in direct proportion to the gossip they generate.

Maybe we are so absorbed in these shows because we can picture ourselves as one of the regular people on a reality program, but not as Julia Roberts. Lucky children have parents who tell them how special they are. Somehow, the meaning gets distorted. We are a nation of people who believe they would make a great novelist (82% of adults polled) but who don’t actually write them (2% of adults). We are a nation of people who believe we could be a rock star if we could just get a lucky break, despite the evidence viewed on American Idol each week. So perhaps reality TV and celebrity gossip feed the flicker of hope buried in each not-so-special adult breast.

Or maybe it’s what Britney’s erstwhile husband said – that people feel good watching two celebrities (well, one celebrity and one pre-nup) go through a rough divorce, because it make the average folks feel more normal.

My daughter closed the People Magazine website window, and I doubt she’ll open it for Britney news again. Is it strange to think that one person’s choices could make the difference in that poor pop-star’s life? Not at all. We have huge social issues before us, and the only way we’ll make a dent in any of them is one click at a time.

 (c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

Most men indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error.

—Ben Franklin, Autobiographical Writings (last speech)

It is a complicated world in which we live. We require conviction about certain things in order to center ourselves and make our way. Yet those same convictions sometimes blind us to a greater truth or understanding about life, love, and God.

Most of us do not understand the history of our religions, the social contexts in which our religions were developed, and the ways in which all sacred texts have been manipulated by various kings, religious leaders, emperors, and tribal chieftans to support their personal political agendas. We understand the religious history that was taught to us by our parents, their parents, and their parents’ parents, and we accept this verbal history as the truth.

It’s no small surprise that true biblical scholars – not divinity students, but scholars of the bible and its history – go through a crisis of faith at some point in their studies. They learn how fallible the socially accepted religious texts are. Those who continue to have faith do so because they choose to believe, in spite of all the human error and meddling. What a powerful faith theirs is, to choose not from denial, but from a place of light (truth) and spiritual hope.

We hide behind our beliefs, afraid to challenge or question them. Psychologically that makes sense. If we suspect our spouse is cheating on us sexually, we go through a phase of not wanting to know. The truth can be difficult and painful because it may cause change. Some people choose to never confront the truth of their spouse’s infidelity, and live instead in a state of denial and suppressed pain.

If we have chosen not to confront the infidelity, then woe to the well-meaning (or not-so-well-meaning) friend who points it out to us. Their recognition of the truth means that we must deal with it, and if we have used denial to create a false reality, we don’t appreciate someone else shining a light on it.

All of us hide behind denial to some extent. It’s a complicated world that presents us with too many contradictions. One person’s acceptance of nudity is another person’s violation of modesty. One family’s arranged marriage for the strengthening of family ties and responsibilities is another person’s violation of marriage as an institution dependent on love. One person’s pacifism is another person’s weakness. One person’s polygamy is another person’s violation of the sanctity of marriage. One person’s martyrdom is a violation of another’s sense of God’s peace.

Cultural norms and mores simplify life. Merely 200 years ago nearly every human being lived within a community which enjoyed the simplicity of entirely shared values. Well, that’s not quite true. For instance, in most western cultures 200 years ago, if a married woman was miserable – whether she was beaten , taken for granted, or anywhere in between – she could not leave her marriage. She couldn’t own land, hold a job, or vote. So whether she shared the norms and mores or not was irrelevant – she had to pretend to in order to maintain what little place she had in society. Slavery has been part of the world since time immemorial, continuing today. Still, most communities 200 years ago benefited from general sharing of cultural values.

As the world has become more integrated, we experience challenges to our beliefs and values. The Archbishop of Canterbury recently advanced an argument that England should consider Sharia law for the purposes of negotiating marital and civilian disputes. The world immediately split over his statement – some suggesting that social cohesion is not possible when multiple legal systems are contending for primacy, and others arguing that it’s about time western culture recognized that the Muslims within their cultures require Sharia law to function. Who is right? As the Archbishop of Canterbury has learned, even raising the question of how to accommodate religious views and rights within a secular society can have grave implications for one’s career.

State by painful State the US has been debating whether or not gay couples should have the same rights under the law as married couples. Proponents of the bills argue that gay couples should not have to worry about whether or not they will be able to visit their loved one in a hospital, make medical decisions when necessary, or maintain their joint property after a loved one’s death. Opponents of the bills argue that gay marriage mocks the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and that the fabric of society will be permanently torn if gay unions are legally recognized. Who is right?

In 1955 Robert Green Ingersoll said:

“Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of god, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the worst is a slave in power.”

There is room for all of us, whether believers or non-believers, to recognize a certain personal responsibility in Ingersoll’s challenge. The challenge is this:

We cannot simultaneously uphold our own fundamental rightness and offer genuine respect to human beings who believe differently than us. The two positions are mutually exclusive. We can condescendingly agree to accept that the other person has a different opinion, but that is not the same as valuing that person equally to ourselves.

If we wish to take no risks with our salvation, our only hope is to choose to see the Godliness in every other human being, and to strive to understand how their Godliness leads them to believe differently than we do. We cannot condemn another person without condemning ourselves. We cannot judge another person without likewise turning our judgment on ourselves. If we are among those who believe in God, how egotistical it is to believe that God requires our judgment of His other children to make His world whole? Don’t we think He can handle that aspect Himself?

If we are not worried about salvation because we don’t believe in God or a hereafter, our only hope in life is to learn as much as we can from every other human being we encounter, because this one life is the only one we’ve got and the only way to live it to the fullest would be to allow its fullness to live in us.

One sure path to the truth is to be willing to view our own beliefs with as much skepticism as we view the beliefs of others. An even surer path to the truth is to challenge all of our systems, our laws, and our social structures to uplift and uphold the dignity and supreme worth of every human being. In every choice we make, if we would stop to consider the worth and dignity of those involved – and not just our own views of how the world should work – I believe that we would consistently make better choices.

In 1902 William James lamented that out of fanaticism “crusades have been preached and massacres instigated for no other reason than to remove a fancied slight upon the God.” History does not provide an example of it, but can’t you imagine a world where all people are seekers of truth and clear thinking? It would be impossible to wage a war, starve a child, beat a woman, or cheat a friend if the only enculturation we knew was to shine the light of equality and love on every person we met.

No one of us is more special than any other. But we could be incredibly special together if we put our minds – and not our blindered beliefs – to the task.

(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

We’re home-schooling our kindergartner. No, we’re not fundamentalists (of any sort), separatists, public school antagonists, or shiftless. We just don’t know where we’ll be living in the next few weeks.

No, we’re not homeless.

We put our house on the market in July. July, 2007, the month the housing market imploded, sending would-be homebuyers everywhere running for the exits, or at least running for their latest FICO score. Suddenly the world of easy credit disappeared, and with it went the era of thinking one could sell their house in something less than five months. But that’s a topic for another day, because right now, we’re talking about home-schooling a kindergartner.

In July, our five-year-old was on track for entering kindergarten in less than five weeks. Kindergarten would not have been the significant milestone it was for our older children, who are 22 and 16. When I gave birth to the two older children I quit my job and worked from home for the first three years, and we had a nanny. So when the older kids entered kindergarten, it was an entirely new experience. When our six-year-old was born (somewhat of a surprise), I was the CEO of a mid-sized corporation. We kept her out of daycare for the first year by juggling schedules, after which she started attending day-care for half-days. When I ended my 11-year stint with that company in July, our little one had been in school half-days for four of her five years. We were all delighted to take a break.

Then we decided to move across the country, and we put our house on the market. What to do about kindergarten? We didn’t know if we should start her, then yank her out five weeks later (we were highly optimistic despite the daily gloom in the Wall Street Journal), or if we should hold off and start kindergarten in our new home. We opted for the latter. We bought books with titles like “What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know” and “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons,” and we began a daily playtime that included reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.

From our little one’s perspective, it has been a blast. Every morning she dances around impatiently until it’s time to start school. She has now had nearly seven months of staying at home every day, hanging out with her family, and attending school in my home office. We’re worried that she will not be enthusiastic about attending real school when the time comes.

From my perspective, it has been a challenge. Apparently my skills as a businesswoman are not the same ones required to provide a kindergarten education. I am exhausted at the end of each 2-hour lesson. Did I push too hard? Not push enough? Is she making the appropriate progress? You know – the usual parental questions that always come back to the core issue — how badly am I ruining my child?

I was always relieved to be able to send my older children off to school each day. It was a comfort to know they were someone else’s responsibility for the next six hours, and that that somebody else was far more capable than I of preparing my child’s mind for the rigors of the future. Once we moved to the southern state in which we currently live (and are moving away from), that relief turned to constant anxiety. The schools are a huge disappointment. The community is small enough that you have to know someone to get into the very limited number of non-parochial private schools (we didn’t), and I really don’t think most parents – no matter how educated we are – are the best option for educating their own children. So the only option was to turn my children over to someone else’s responsibility each day, but no longer with the comfort of believing they were in better hands than my own.

My older children have done fine, due to their strong personalities and undauntable natures. But both of them chose to test out of high school early and proceed with college, rather than remain in the quasi-violent holding tanks that our community calls school. And no doubt that played a strong role in our decision that our youngest would have nothing to do with the schools in this community. When she enters school, it will be in truly top-notch public schools (far from being a public-school antagonist, I am an incredibly strong believer in the system, though it has been damaged so greatly by no-child-gets-ahead and prior administration neglect and abuses that one wonders what we can do to salvage it).

But in the meantime, I am gaining tremendous appreciation for those dedicated souls who throw themselves to the kindergarten gods each autumn, to embark on yet another season of teaching them social skills, reading, writing, and creativity. Without ruining them.

(c) 2008.  Andrea Hill