Chris Bonney

Could Mad Men Be The Future?

My wife and I spent the last three months getting up to speed on the hit series Mad Men on AMC. 

We rented seasons one and two and would watch up to three episodes in one night. It's an addicting show. Donald Draper and his dark twisted lifestyle even haunted me in my dreams. I couldn't get him out of my head.

We eventually got caught up to the third season, which just ended last week. We watched the last three episodes in real-time, when it was actually scheduled to play. Who does that anymore? But we suffered through the commercials because we had to see how season three ended as soon as humanly possible.

Suffice it to say, it ended interestingly. 

So, now today as I sit here with nothing but a residual Mad Men buzz, it hits me. 

Could the seemingly antiquated method of having a girl (in today's PC world, it would have to be a "person," of course) sit outside your office and take your calls and type up your voice recordings actually be a model for the future? Could 1962 be more relevant today than ever?

Tim Ferriss already does it. In his book 4-hour Workweek he talks about using a virtual assistant for his email and virtual necessities. Does this scale?

As a client manager, what if you could spend more time creating proactive, strategic initiatives for your clients instead of manning email 24/7 putting out one pointless fire after another? Peggy! Take care of that, will you?

As a designer, what if your "girl" read Smashing Magazine for you and synopsized what she thought you'd find interesting?

What if you and your "girl" could each work fewer hours in the week and achieve exponentially more than you do now?

It's a new model of working, sure. But clearly our titans of industry could use a paradigm shift. In this knowledge worker, service-oriented country of ours maybe a new staffing model is just what we need. 

The Resolution I Hope You Didn't Make This Year

So we're a couple days into the new year. You've no doubt tried to resist those left over sugar cookies and have maybe even hit the gym once already in an effort to kick start your resolution to lose weight. Or maybe you've made that connection with the old friend you've resolved to keep in better contact with. Or maybe you've cleaned out your inbox top to bottom because "this year's gonna be different!"

It Won't Be Different
Here's the truth. Next year won't be different from this year. You won't lose 20 pounds and you won't keep your inbox empty. The reason you won't is because you weren't doing those things -- or better yet, being those things, just 3 short days ago. How have you really changed since Wednesday?

You Can't Change Your Lifestyle
It's now become popular to explain how you're not simply going to diet to lose weight, you're going to change your lifestyle. We can thank Dr. Phil for that nugget, but the fact is changing your lifestyle is not the goal.It is the effect of achieving your goal. Your goal should be specific. You don't want to lose 20 pounds, you want to stop eating french fries 4 times a week. You don't want to have a more manageable inbox, you want to create 3 email accounts and use them accordingly: business, personal and inbound only. By making incremental steps toward a broader reaching goal, your lifestyle will change, but not because you set out to do it, but because you're becoming someone new.

Resolutions Are Bunk
Being specific or not in your goals, of course, really isn't the point either, though when setting goals it's where your head needs to be. No, resolutions are bunk because they imply a future state. You're resolving to do something. You're not doing it now, you're going to do it. That mentality is why you'll not achieve your weight loss or keep in touch with your friend or keep your inbox empty. You're not doing it today so you won't do it tomorrow. Resolutions are for people who want to dream, who want to talk about what they'll be someday.Doers do...today.

You Should Be Different
What if you tried something different? What if every day, every single day, you woke up in the morning and resolved to do something? Make resolving part of what you do every day, or, better yet, who you are every day -- continually striving for more. Don't blow off October, November, and December because you know this new idea, endeavor, desire, or want would be better suited as a new year's resolution. Resolve October 1st to call your friend. Not in the future, not next year, right now on October 1st. Resolve on October 2nd to create your 3 email accounts, resolve on Oct 3rd to not eat french fries on that day. Resolve right now, right this very moment, to be more resolute...more often.

Don't get suckered into the cultural vacuum of new year's resolutions. Be the change. Resolve daily. The resolution I hope you didn't make this year is the one you did.

If You Don't Create It, You Can't Keep It

Don’t you just shake your head in wonder when you hear about lottery winners who end up bankrupt? How could they lose all those millions? It can seem unfathomable when you see a former professional athlete on TV who is now poor and unemployed just a few years after their playing days. How does this happen? It’s one of those mysteries of life, isn’t it?

It’s not a mystery at all, actually.

Remember that old TV commercial for Smith Barney when the smoothly-accented voice over says, “We make money the old-fashioned way – we EARN it”

They nailed it right there. To keep it, you must create it.

It must be earned for it to stay in your life. And to earn it generally means some time, effort, commitment, and sacrifice in the process. It must be part of who you are, part of your core. If serendipity played a part, beware.

Lottery Winners
Consider Evelyn Adams, who won the New Jersey Lottery twice, in 1985 and 1986, for a total $5.4 million, gambled and gave away all of her money. She was poor by 2001, and living in a trailer. Evelyn was not a person prepared for that kind of money. She'd done nothing for it, so had little idea how to keep it. It wasn't part of who she was, it was something that happened to her.

NFL Players
Consider that 78% of NFL players are unemployed, bankrupt or divorced two years after their last game.

Scholarships
Consider the fact that the NCAA must put out Academic Progress Rates because too few schools are graduating athletes. College is a learning institution and if you’re there because you’re good at a sport, the universe is working against you, right? You may have earned a scholarship, but you didn’t truly earn acceptance into the institution of higher learning. You've tried to beat a system that isn't beatable.

Diets
The most classic example of not keeping what you don’t create.

So, in your personal and business life consider the reality of what you can keep and what you will never really have. Did that big sale you landed have anything to do with your selling savvy or was it someone’s uncle who got you the introduction?

Will your marriage make it past a serious dip or will your spouse bail out when things get a little rocky?

I’m not the only one to believe in this law of the universe by any stretch. Observe with an open mind and you'll see this law everywhere. It takes a certain amount of awareness and realism to know if the things you feel so victimize by (“I always gain the weight back!) are products of what you do or who you are.

Any other examples? Have you lost something that you realize now you didn't create? 

Photo: wili_hybrid

The Red Bull Generation Or Why Being Dumb Is So Cool

Are you a gen Yer? Or maybe someone who feels the attitudes of Gen Y could use some adjustment? Maybe you're a multitasking, BlackBerry-toting business professional who thinks your brain is special.

In any case, this Newsweek article is for you.

A great piece on the realities of the biggest generation to enter the workforce since the Baby Boomers, positioned within the confines of a book review.

It touches too on the true productivity behind multitasking and why just because someone doesn't know the answer, doesn't make them dumb.

Are you dumb?

What are your thoughts on this article?

Photo Credit: deia

The Donald Was Right - You're A Loser

Donald Trump had a good point last night as he was firing Nadia Comaneci. He told her in so many words that she was a winner, and that most people are losers. I'm not one to agree with Donald very often, let alone watch his shows (a lost remote locked my TV on his show for minutes and minutes and minutes last night), but he's right, most people are losers.

Sound harsh? Sure, but sometimes harsh is a wake up call. But, Chris, people are out there trying hard to make ends meet, trying to get along. And that is the problem. They are trying. Trying comes with a built-in excuse for failing. If you tried and failed, well, at least you tried. No. Not how it works.

What is it that you want to do? Move in that direction. If you want to be rich, what would a rich person be doing right now? Would they be reading this blog? No, probably not. They'd probably be writing their own blog or maybe coming up with ideas on how to make more money. How many ideas to make money to do you really have? Imagine yourself already having accomplished your goal. Now what? Who are you? What are you wearing? Who do you have lunch with? Stop trying to do or be and start doing and being.

Think about what you want to achieve, not what you want to have. Don't say I don't know what I want to do with my life. Ask: Who do I want to be in this life?

Like Donald or don't, but one thing is clear. He doesn't try, he does. If only Nadia could have been so smart.

My Resolution About Resolutions

What would a blog be without a post at the first of the year about resolutions? But wait...

It's been a long-held belief of mine that new year's resolutions are ultimately not a plan for success. We hang so much on the beginning of a new year, the hope of a new set of habits and/or practices. Yet, we do very little in the planning department to make them stick.

My approach?

Declare a resolution every day.

It doesn't always have to be a new one (that would be 365 resolutions, after all), but make yourself a list of goals every day with a plan and schedule to accomplish them. Forget the classic resolutions like "lose weight", "work out more", or "use credit cards less." These are not actionable. Define small goals and achieve them: "Eat 100 fewer calories today", "Walk to the train instead of taking the bus", or "Don't put lunch on the VISA." As you accomplish these daily goals, you will gain momentum and confidence and that is what builds a better life in the end.

Set a resolution to make resolutions part of your every day life. Don't bank your coming year's success on a couple overarching, non-specific pipe-dreams.

Start tomorrow and you can enjoy that incredible feeling of new year's day hope every day, just without the vodka hangover.

Have any resolution stories you'd like to share? Comment below or e-mail me.

Medical Myths To Know

Be the know-it-all at your next cocktail party. It's a lesson in societal and media influence. If we hear something enough we believe it is true. Does your company have any cultural myths that have gone unchallenged? Do your clients have any myths about you?

Comment here or e-mail me with any other myths you may want to share.

Merriam Gives A w00t

The word of the year has been selected. From an infrequent gamer's perspective it seems a little random and somewhat irrelevant to the masses. Beyond that, it seems to be a validation to the hatchet-act that electronic messaging has done to our language. IMO, this is difficult to LOL about, FWIW.

Are You Nonplussed?

On occasion a word gets misused so often that we tend to forget what it really does mean. The term "factoid" actually morphed from its true meaning of something that is false but because of constant repitition appears to be true to also mean a small insignificant fact. See where confusion could become an issue?

Another word is "nonplussed". It does not mean messy. It means confused. So...

To say: "I'm nonplussed about the usage of factoid in some instances."

Would be fairly accurate.

Why care? You tell me.

Fry-free Nation

We're coming up on the end of the year and for me it means alot. 2007 was a year that I actually kept a resolution. I've gone the entire year without eating french fries. Yes, fry-free is for me. I sent out a request at the beginning of this year, Jan 3 to be exact, asking my friends if they wanted to participate in my endeavor. They all bowed out having cited consumption of fries multiple times already within the young year. I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Though I've not necessarily lost weight or gotten extra healthy because of this effort, it has given me a boost of confidence and proven that I can, in fact, exercise my willpower. The key, like so many people say, is to win the battle at the store, or in this case, the ordering process at the restaurant. If you can be conscientious enough to order the slaw instead of the obligatory fries, you're half way there. It's when you forget, and that burger plops in front of you with a steaming pile of fried potatoes that life gets a little tough.

Tim Sanders recently blogged on his eating habits as well. Take a look at his advice.

The biggest question I get is: Why? It's not like I'm addicted to fries or overdosed on them at the end of 2006 or anything. It's almost like I'm honoring the fry by not eating it. There are so many so-so fries out there that I don't feel eating fries because they are there is the way to up the bar on fry creation. I honor the fry by only eating it once a year, but eating the best fries in the world when I do.

On January 4th of 2008 you can find me breaking my fry fast at Rockit Restaurant in Chicago. They have the best sweet potato fries and truffle fries on the plant.