Saturday Cup of Joe from Detroit
Tags: Leadership, Nextbelt, Predict Column, American Dream, Truth

Saturday Cup of Joe from Detroit Jeremy Follow Feb 1 · 8 min read

195.

Detroit River

Week 195 in Detroit. It doesn’t seem like a week since the last time I wrote. Current events. Travel. Lack of sleep. What else is new? Well, frankly, A LOT. Kobe Bryant’s accident. Impeachment. Brexit. During the week, I also traveled West for several days for meetings and an event. The good news was 77 degrees and a cloudless sky. Back to Detroit. Clearing emails on the plane. Catching up all day Friday. Productive and dynamic.

Litchfield Park, AZ

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I didn’t know if I would write about the life of Kobe Bryant. I found myself shaken by his death on Sunday. I know many of my friends felt the same way. I know this because of our calls and texts. Between how familiar Kobe was and the connection with his daughter, followed by the #GirlDad tweets and posts, I felt so sad for his family. My brother from another mother, Scott, put it best — why do I feel sorrow? It was as if we all didn’t think we should be allowed to grieve because Kobe was a celebrity and not a personal friend. The reality was sorrow.

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“Those times when you get up early and you work hard, those times when you stay up late and you work hard, those times when you don’t feel like working, you’re too tired, you don’t want to push yourself but you do it anyway: That is actually the dream. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. And if you guys can understand that, then what you’ll see happen is that you won’t accomplish your dreams. Your dreams won’t come true, something greater will. And if you guys can understand that, then I’m doing my job as a father.”

- Kobe Bryant, to his daughters on the night the Lakers retired his jersey

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An awesome life is an adaptable life.

Be adaptable throughout your life by being curious and social.

You know.

Like a dolphin.

Dolphins are happy.

Apparently.

Active.

Social.

Playful.

Humans need science to be an excuse for common sense.

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Add the traits — optimism and willingness to fail — and you’ve got it.

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This is some shit. House flippers and investors are threatening, intimidating, and even tattling on current home owners to try to get their homes. Pittsburgh, the Eastern edge of the #NextBelt, is a dynamic real estate market quickly increasing home values and likelihood of finding good coffee and craft beer.

One of the things I think about is as cities like Pittsburgh, Louisville, Columbus, Detroit and Milwaukee renovate homes as well as urban areas, what is the best way to promote inclusive growth? I’ve written before participate do not displace.

My fundamental belief about the #NextBelt is that first-time home buyers want to be part of a story. That commitment to place and becoming a part of that place’s story is the new American Dream. That’s my story that I’m telling myself. Regardless of the why, equity (i.e. wealth creation) effects the entire economy. It has short term consequences but the more concerning implication is the long term economic impact of a generation of people who do not or cannot buy a home.

We know that homeownership creates lasting wealth and, in some cases, generational wealth. So for communities of color, equity is critical and yet still elusive. The rates of black homeownership nationwide have fallen to the same rates as existed in the mid-1960s. In order to not only create equal opportunity but establish stability for the entire economy for the next 20 years, we have to solve for homeownership. Options. On-ramps. Opportunity.

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Ok, Boomer: As the demand for the top and most interesting jobs in the economy grows, the jobs are increasingly going to and held by those with the most work experience. Not a particularly controversial statement, at first. Unfortunately the unintended consequence is that over generations young professionals in America have been increasingly joining the most lucrative, least risky positions. And we have little innovation and even less creativity as a result. The explosion of the Internet might lead you to believe that’s not true.

Surely we’re more creative now that everyone’s talents whether vocational or recreational are on display. The reality is that outside a few niche areas of technology, the workforce especially the younger workforce is skewing towards predictability. Law. Consulting.

Tyler Cowen writes, “On net, America is selling its talented young people insurance value — but at the expense of long-term innovation.” The risk taking, the innovation and the serendipity are becoming harder and harder to find. This is not good for the overall economy, not to mention the American sense of entrepreneurial adventure.

Cowen notes, “As more and more experience is required for many of America’s top and most influential jobs, fewer and fewer young people qualify.” Again, not in and of itself unusual, until we analyze the unintended consequence.

For a dynamic, risk-taking and ultimately creative economy, we want to encourage, or at a minimum not penalize, attempts to strike out and launch a variety of enterprises (not just tech companies).

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You may have heard of the W. Timothy Gallwey book The Inner Game of Tennis about how tennis is a game of two sides — the outer game against the opponent and the inner game against one’s thoughts. Unsurprisingly, this applies to all competitive endeavors including business. I had never heard of it until I read Farnam Street’s review but it all makes perfect sense. Push too hard, try too hard and risk tension so delicate that it snaps and ensures your worst fear comes true — failure. Rely too heavily on positive thinking and risk shifting your preparation into the dichotomy of right or wrong. Often preparation isn’t right or wrong simply efficient or not.

“Victories in the inner game may provide no additions to the trophy case, but they bring valuable rewards which are more permanent and which can contribute significantly to one’s success, off the court as well as on.”

- W. Timothy Gallwey

I believe Gallwey is referring to happiness here. Satisfaction with one’s effort. Conquering the inner game doesn’t guarantee a win everyday. It only guarantees perspective. Proper perspective means focusing on the proper assessment — how in control of my performance, including my thoughts and emotions, am I? If I’m focused and intentional, any outcome is appropriate because that means my preparation and performance was as direct as it could have been. The result should be contentment and understanding even if the outcome was not in your favor.

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With the Impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump underway and the primary in Iowa coming up this week, I thought it was appropriate when I stumbled across an examination of what’s fiction and what’s lying. Is there a difference? Yes, yes there is.

And that’s where it gets tricky.

It doesn’t seem tricky. It seems like a straightforward question of whether what was said is true or not true. But we all know it’s not that simple.

Intent plays a key and deceptive role in the thought process. “What matters more than actual truth or falsehood is that liars believe their statements to be false.” Yet, given that measuring stick, factual information about the consequences of one’s decisions (there are good people on both sides) is blurred by the intent or, worse, to what degree the statement was true. A nugget of truth, one good person, makes the intent and whole statement true (?). Conversely, untrue information believed to be true (there is a vast conspiracy out to get me) blurs the factual information regardless of intent.

Outside the context of storytelling for entertainment — movies, books, etc. — I wonder if we’d be better off analyzing the circumstances and outcomes of political statements rather than the intent. Is the speaker saying something about which they really should know? (e.g. Who is going to pay or actually paying for a physical wall between two countries?) Or is it more wild speculation? (e.g. Tech companies are run by maniacal, money-obsessed white men who will stop at no invasion of your privacy to achieve digital domination.) If we don’t believe the teenager whose glassy eyes are staring back at us 2 hours past curfew (because of circumstances and outcomes), why are professional adults given a pass?

Of course, I’ve turned this entire thing to politics but perhaps because politics appears to be setting the tone for so many conversations and “allowances” right now. It’s baffling the standard we hold each other to in our own workplace versus the standard we expect from the Senate chamber or the podium on the campaign trail.

The standard “say only what you believe to be true” is insufficient because it allows the speaker conscious wiggle room to convince themselves of what they want to be true instead of what they believe is true.

So, where does that leave us? Listening for fact versus fiction or, rather, fiction versus the lie? The difficulty there is if the speaker has substituted intent (belief that something is true) in place of sufficient evidence that something is true, the fiction (or lie) can persist unchallenged.

But to challenge is to judge. Or so we’re led to believe.

I disagree.

Asking or gathering more information is just the pursuit of sufficient evidence and/or the verification of intent. That, to me, seems reasonable enough. But without the collective trust in either evidence or intent, we’re left with certain fiction. Theater, in fact.

And that’s acceptable. Apparently. The lowering of standards, repeatedly, over time until we’ll accept statements of intent in order to move something from the lie category to the fiction category. (All you have to say after the fact is “I didn’t mean it to be true, I meant it to prove the point.”)

Is it just a matter of higher expectations and the patience and discipline to maintain them?

I don’t know. But I’m willing to find out.

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“Joy” and “Blessed” almost overlooked in a flowerbed at the conference hotel this week.

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“Most traffic jams are unnecessary” (I knew it!) “and this deeply irks mathematicians who specialize in traffic flow.” This shocking news according to a blog post on FastCompany this week.

If I’m being honest, most traffic jams annoy me and I live 2 miles from work, so I’m not even in them! Traffic is my pet peeve.

Apparently the solution, or at least a majority of the solution, would be 3 things — 1). We all use the same navigation system 2). Parking bans in and out of major cities and 3). Green lanes to incentivize electric cars.

So there ya have it. Google Maps, No Parking, Tesla.

Please, go ahead, you first.

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“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” — Albert Camus

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Bonus Content: What if artificial intelligence designed our cities?

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Continued success and continue to answer well,