Broadcasting Brain

Steve Spalding provides a very important life lesson for everyone, especially those of us in social media, blogging, creative work, etc.

From the post:

Learn to be patient.

Learn to be patient in everything that you do. Learn to be patient when life is looking up, and learn to be patient when everything is going south. Learn to be patient because nothing you do will ever be easy and patience is the only skill that is guaranteed to pull you out of the muck.

Well said, Steve.

If you're new here, welcome! Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed to stay up to date with my latest posts and articles. Thanks for visiting!

Jeff Pulver wrote a post earlier this week called So Who Are YOU that has kind of been sticking in my Broadcasting Brain this week. Here’s an excerpt for your consideration:

There are times when you may look at yourself in the mirror and you may not recognize the stranger you have become.

This is a sign to sit down, take a deep breath and ask yourself “How did I get here?”

What scares me is that I’m not sure if the Jeff of 2008 would even be friends with the Jeff of 1995. But I hope we could find enough things in common to connect and maintain an active friendship.

This is a good mental exercise to go through. Throw aside the social media apps, blogging, technology, and other trappings and compare yourself now to then. Or should you discount it? Has today’s technology helped to change the kind of person that you are? Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe it has amplified certain skills and personality traits. Maybe it has dampened others.

What do you think?

I was driving home on a poorly lit highway last night when I had an interesting experience. It was a clear, but dark night and there weren’t many other vehicles traveling on the divided highway. There was one car driving fairly close to me, a few hundred meters ahead. I was mentally multi-tasking about some creative project as well as my visit with an old friend, when the car ahead of me slowed down while its brake lights lit up. Instinctively I began to slow down as well. I wondered what was going on and then, to my right, a hulking black shape moved from the shoulder of the road down the bank to the side of the road. Even though I couldn’t see it clearly, I knew it was a large animal of some kind. Based on the road signs I’d seen on this highway, I concluded that a moose had crossed the highway. The driver in front of me had seen it, slowed down, and avoided the animal, which lumbered on by. The driver ahead of me slowed down even further, so I passed his or her vehicle and continued on my way home to my destination.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered moose in this area, but it was the first time that the vehicle before me saw it first and slowed down. By his or her actions, that driver gave me a signal that danger was ahead, which allowed me to react. I might not have seen the moose in the dark and, truthfully, I didn’t get a good look at it, but I received enough information to react accordingly. The annoying thing about moose, of course, is that they are sometimes hard to spot even in good conditions because their colors tend to blend in with local scenery. However, moose are huge and heavy. You wouldn’t think they would be easy to miss. However, plenty of people collide with moose each year, so I’d say they aren’t always easy to see or else they aren’t always easy to react to. They pack a huge wallop when you collide with them so it’s always best to avoid them.

Here are some observations from this incident:

• Moose are big
• Moose can be hard to see, even in good conditions, unless they are extremely close by
• Sometimes the person ahead of you will see the moose before you do
• If the person ahead of you slows down, you need to slow down, too

Let’s put this into an even more generic set of statements. I’m going to remove the moose references as well:

• Sometimes big things that can have a huge impact on you aren’t easy to see
• Sometimes someone else will see the big things happening before you do
• If they, like you, are also a stakeholder in some kind of activity or experience, and they react, maybe you should, too - even if you can’t see what’s really happening
• You’ve got to keep your eyes open all of the time and you’ve got to know the terrain

Good little lesson for a Sunday night drive. And it didn’t even cost me a car.

I forget things. I need reminders. It’s that simple.

Sometimes I need reminders about things that should be in my short term memory. I misplace my keys and wallet quite often. I always find them later, but it does cause some anxiety when I can’t find them. The main source of the anxiety is when my wife gets worried when I can’t find important things. Good thing she looks out for me!

My short-term memory has declined a bit over the past few years, mainly because I’m multi-tasking and trying to hold a number of things in my memory. Eventually things are going to fall out because of my preoccupation. I tend to be one of these people who bangs into doors, walls, furniture, you name it, because I’m not really focused in the here and now. I haven’t broken any bones yet, but there’s always a possibility?

My long term memory is in decent shape, but lately I’m starting to forget the names of people that I haven’t seen for a long time. That really sucks, especially when you’re having a conversation with them. I tend to use the word “you” a lot when I get stuck like this. I guess people think that I’m considerate, and a people person. I haven’t tried to change their minds!

Multitasking, in addition to the effects of stress, play havoc with our health and our memory. So be it. We just need to realize it and take steps to deal with it.

In fact, Leo over at Zen Habits (a man who really knows how to get visitors to your blog) wrote a great article about ways to declutter your mind. It looked pretty cool and worth reading.

I’m going to print it out and read it later - if I can remember.