By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Nov 11, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET  Something very thought provoking just occured to me.
What if life really is just a dress rehearsal? If so, how many “live” performances are we talking about and will we be expected to perform in all of them? And what kinds of snacks will be offered at intermission?
Could we maybe do just one full performance and just do some informal Q & A on the other nights?
I mean, we aren’t even finished with the dress rehearsal yet and it is hard sometimes to stay focused and remember my lines. I am not even sure we need an ending that ties up all the lose ends. Too many loose ends to keep track of anyway. Just go with a Sopranos type ending and wrap it.
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue Nov 11, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET At Valley Forge George Washington participated in a cricket game with his troops. This may have marked the highpoint of cricket in what would become the USA, but why is this so? Can’t Americans enjoy cricket? How does it compare to watching baseball? We attended the T20 World Cup of Cricket in Sri Lanka to find out and offer the ultimate comparison…
As for excitement value, cricket matches baseball in dullness. Both sports excel in offering vies of people standing around. Better yet, just like baseball, you don’t have to worry about blinking…you won’t miss anything if you do…
EXCITEMENT WINNER: Draw, both of these sports are better in highlights than live.
What makes slow sports enjoyable? Beer. Cricket doesn’t fail the spectators, offering beers for $0.92 each. Referring to this handy 2012 MLB beer price guide I see that the average beer at a baseball game costs $6.17. To adjust for size, on a per ounce basis, cricket’s beer costs $0.12 per ounce versus the MLB average of $0.41.
Read the rest of…
Erica and Matt Chua: Can Americans Enjoy Cricket?
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Nov 10, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET  Parking next to this truck this morning while eating my breakfast made me think about some things.
First, staring at gigntic bugs while eating is a terrific way to suppress your appetite.
Second, although I am a Democrat, I am OK with outright killing these insects rather than just capturing and imprisoning them in hopes of eventually reforming them and returning them to society.
Especially the giant one on the left that I felt like was staring at me during breakfast.
By RP Nation, on Mon Nov 10, 2014 at 10:00 AM ET  Dear Mr. President,
This is your future Ebola Czarina checking in. You’ve been pretty busy lately, so if you missed my blog about Ebola, you can read it here: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ebola? Seems like we have Ebola under control at the moment, so kudos to the current Czar, but if you would like to write in a succession clause, I’m your girl.
But I digress, Ebola is not why I am writing. Earlier this week, exactly 56.2% of the 46% of Kentuckians who even bothered to show up to vote sent Mitch McConnell to represent them in the United States Senate. (Note: let’s be fair, Lexingtonians and Louisvillians are excluded from this statistic, they actually voted to send Alison to the Senate in the same proportions)
I have to believe that a certain percentage sent him back, not because they liked him, but to bring home the “pork” to Kentucky, as Senate majority leader, because after all, it’s the American way. I’m not sure how I feel about those people as it is this logic that has completely bastardized the resource distribution of our democratic government but that’s a letter for a different day.
Those Kentuckians didn’t send him to represent me, as I promise you that the votes he will cast will never reflect anything that I stand for. And you know that saying, “You have to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything”. Yeah, well let’s just say that too many Kentuckians will fall for anything, and evidently that disease is pretty contagious among the voting electorate in the mid-terms of 2014.
On Wednesday, after those Kentuckians who cannot see that they are being lied to and their votes and souls are being bought by fear mongering billionaires, decided that Mitch McConnell, after 30 abysmal years of legislating, was yet again their man, you invited him over for some food, fun & fellowship at the White House. You said, I quote, “I would enjoy having some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell.” Now Mr. President, I will take you at your word that you meant what you said, but I have to assume it would be the bourbon that you would enjoy with Mitch McConnell, rather than the discourse.
In this state, bourbon flows like water. We drink it in any manner you can imagine, we’ve built a trail around it, we make candy out of it, we have even been known to light it on fire when served as part of a decadent dessert or two. In a few hours, I myself will be tailgating with it at the UK vs. Georgia game, but I think you get my point.
But Mr. President, this Kentucky girl is here to tell you…there isn’t enough bourbon. You could push Bourbon through the veins of Mitch McConnell intravenously and he still wouldn’t see what you and I see.
- To see that people are people, and Corporations are NOT
- To see that inconvenient truths not addressed for decades, could become species ending nightmares at the end of the millennium
- To see that legislation passed in his name is often exactly what Jesus WOULDN’T DO! (not WWJD!)
- To see that choosing “Pork” in Washington, in the long run, harms the men and women bringing home the bacon
- To see that profit maximizers don’t self-regulate
- To see that ending the “War on Coal” fuels a war on clean drinking water and irreversible environmental damage
- To see that access to healthcare makes us all healthier
- To see that Student Loans are as important, if not more important, as Business Loans
- To see that Planned Parenthood serves low income women in ways they will never understand
- To see that birth control pills are used for dozens of women’s health concerns, only one of which is preventing birth
- To see that being Pro Life should mean feeding, clothing, and nurturing these children long after the birth is over
- To see the importance of funding Sesame Street instead of Wall Street
- To see that tomorrow’s criminal is today’s abused, neglected, and broken child
- To see that neediest children come to school to be loved as much as to learn
- To see that Head Start isn’t just an academic start, it is the ONLY start for many of these children
- To see that choosing butter over guns is not only the right thing to do but the smart economic thing to do
- To see that love is defined by the heart, not the type of genitalia
- To see that government can and should reduce suffering, instead of inflicting it
- To see that as Americans we are, and should be our brother and sister’s keeper
So now that the Bourbon Summit is over, keep fighting the good fight, please get back to doing what you have gotten really good at, rebuilding a country and economy you inherited 6 years ago that was decimated by 8 years of the policies of the same party that just dropped by for a bite of lunch.
And while these next two years are going to be a nightmare of preventing the passing of legislation that will undo the economic growing, deficit & governmental fraud reducing and consumer protecting accomplishments of your presidency, please know that history will be kind to you.
And Mr. President, if Mitch didn’t bring the Pappy Van Winkle, he brought the wrong stuff.
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Nov 10, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET  This is the sixth of a series of conversations originally published on the Time website, authored by myself and Nicha Ratana, with transformational leaders who will be storytellers at the BIF10 Collaborative Innovation Summit in Providence, RI, on Sept. 17-18
How many people end business meetings with an “I love you” and a hug? Venture capitalist and former AT&T Labs scientist Deb Mills-Scofield does.
To Mills-Scofield, to do business is to negotiate diverse personalities to get things done — and she has the gift for it. “The broader, deeper, and more diverse your network, the bigger the impact you can make on the world,” she says.
She explains her network this way: Her consultancy, Mills-Scofield LLC, is her livelihood and passion; venture capital firm, Glengary, where she is a partner, is her way of giving back. She helps entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground by connecting them with clients and collaborators who are hungry for innovation. Furthermore, she mentors a small army of students at her alma mater, Brown University, introducing them to opportunities where they can help “kick things up a bit.”
Each connection Mills-Scofield makes is an iteration of her business philosophy, which is as old-school as it gets: she believes, simply, in “paying it forward.”
“Your network is not about you. A network is to be shared,” she maintains. “Networking is about people: seeing what makes them tick, and connecting them to someone to help them.”
She admits to being selective in networking, but her criterion is humble: “I only help people who are willing to help others.”
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Mills-Scofield grew up in Rumson, NJ. She and her sister attended public school, but every Tuesday, her mother took them into Manhattan to visit the museums. The girls were also encouraged to take another day off every week — to stay home and play.
“Right from the get-go,” Mills-Scofield says, “my model for education was that it is a personal responsibility.”
At Brown, she created one of the country’s first undergraduate majors in cognitive science. She went on to work for Bell Labs, where she was responsible for engineering the most lucrative messaging-system patent in the history of AT&T Lucent.
Long before corporate America started to sloganeer its rebellion, before “Work is Personal” and “All Business is Social,” Deb Mills-Scofield did business the only way that made sense to her — with curiosity and compassion. She called herself a “troublemaker.”
“Part of what I bring when I’m consulting is the fact that I care about you as a person, and not as your function,” she says.
In conversation, Mills-Scofield asserts a motherly kind of authority. She is frank but affectionate; she genuinely asks after your family. She doesn’t miss anything.
Her consultancy helps companies humanize their practice. “Any business that wants a return on investment needs to focus on how it impacts its community,” she says.
Mills-Scofield urges CEOs to put themselves in their customer’s shoes. “Have you ever tried to buy from yourself? Have you ever called your own customer service line?” she asks them. She teaches leaders to trust their employees’ desire to learn and create. “Treat them like adults!” she insists. “Give them the autonomy to innovate.”
Fundamentally, she believes that management’s job is to exercise “stewardship” over the organization, not control. “Business strategy is a living, breathing thing,” Mills-Scofield claims, “It’s not a plaque on a shelf, which is where most companies have gone wrong.”
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When Mills-Scofield visits the Brown campus in the fall, she will hold her “office hours” in the cozy kitchen of the student community service center. Over the years, the guidance she has offered her “kids,” as she calls them, has made her a household name within the institution.
This September, she looks forward to introducing her mentees to one of the greatest resources within her network: the Collaborative Innovation Summit hosted annually by the nonprofit Business Innovation Factory (BIF) in Providence, RI.
In 2009, Mills-Scofield connected with Saul Kaplan, BIF’s founder, to encourage a student’s interest in local business innovation. She and Kaplan struck up a friendship, founded on their belief in the better nature of business, and he invited her to speak at the BIF Summit.
“We desperately need to see real examples of world-changing innovation and the “ordinary” people who come together to create it,” Mills-Scofield says.
“I call the BIF Summit a ‘wedding.’ It is better than any other conference at creating connections among strangers at a profoundly human level, because it provides the space — physical, emotional, and intellectual — for you to challenge yourself to think differently, surrounded by other people who are willing to take the risk with you.”
“I came to the BIF-6 Summit, and my network has never been the same since,” she says. “It’s a gift. I’ve been to every one and I can’t wait to go to BIF10.”
The BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit combines 30 brilliant storytellers with more than 400 innovation junkies in a two-day storytelling jam, featuring tales of personal discovery and transformation that spark real connection and “random collisions of unusual suspects.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Nov 7, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Reconsidering my high school highlights reel
As I drove to Rebecca’s 30th high school reunion last night I passed the low bridge on River Road and was reminded that one of my most thrilling accomplishments that made me feel my high school class was clearly more awesome than Rebecca’s involved that bridge — and I hadn’t thought about that night for a very long time.
It was the night that me and two other guys from my high school class stripped down to our underwear and jumped off the low bridge into the icy cold water below. As I smugly recollected that awesome night 33 years ago from the perspective of a non-17 year old, it occurred to me I may have over-estimated the raw awesomeness I had attached to that evening for all these years. Somehow, from the perspective of a modestly mature 51 year old adult, that high school highlight seemed to drop form a “10” to about a “6” on a scale of 1-10. I heard that voice in my head that says things to me like, “That was a bad choice..” In fact, I even began to worry that reassessing my high school highlight reel, so to speak, may lead me to conclude that my high school graduating class wasn’t superior to my wife’s. Especially after I spotted three guys at Rebecca’s reunion who looked like they may have jumped off that same bridge in their underwear on multiple occasions.
Reconsidering my youthful delusions is never an easy thing. So I did the only prudent thing to do in this situation and decided to just table the whole issue of whether my or my wife’s high school class was more awesome –until my wife’s 35th high school reunion.
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Attending your spouse’s 30th high school reunion makes you realize that almost all high school graduating classes have the same stock characters and only a few minor diferemces in the supporting cast and cameo roles.
And for the first time in over 30 years you are forced to entertain the possibility that your high school graduating class may not have been the baddest, coolest, most epic high school graduating class in the history of the universe (excluding the senior class i…n Fast Times at Ridgemont High but they weren’t real).
And that your 1981 Central High School graduating class may only have been a slightly above average graduating class compared to other high schools in your school distict in 1981.
And then you begin to wonder if you have made any other warped presumptions about yourself and the world in other areas of your life. But calm yourself by being certain there was never a greater, hipper kindergarten class in the history of the universe than yours. But are especially grateful your spouse doesn’t have any kindergarten reunions to challenge your belief.
By Julie Rath, on Fri Nov 7, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET 
Have you ever wondered how you rate on a scale of 1-10? Fall is practically here, and the holidays right after that. Those are key times to be exuding confidence and looking your best.
If you want to get serious about your style, and be taken seriously as a result, I invite you to watch the video I made for you explaining how it all works. I’ve worked with hundreds of men worldwide, and it’s been my incredible privilege to observe how much their lives improve and what opportunities come their way when they upgrade their style.
On the same page as the video, you can also take my style quiz. It will show you how you measure up, and what you can do to get to a 10.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Nov 6, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET This morning had an awesome start. The 4 1/2 minute drive from my house to the coffee shop rocked — literally. I really nailed Eddie Vedder’s voice and the air guitar solo in a Pearl Jam song playing in my car.
But while in line for coffee and waiting to meet a business associate, I couldn’t stop looking at two very distinguished looking businessmen about to meet with each other. While I was stirring half-and-half into my coffee …at the condiment bar an even more impressive third member joined their party and they decided to take the “large table in the back.”
The guy I was waiting to meet wasn’t as impressive as these three and I was secretly hoping they would notice me at the condiment bar and invite me to join their table and their meeting. I even asked one to pass me a stir stick and gave a very confident and “important” look as if to say “We have a lot in common. More than the guy I am waiting to meet.” But nothing.
I sat down at a tiny table that hadn’t even been wiped off and tried to look like I was thinking about about a large financial deal. Finally, my guy shows up. But walks past me to say hello to the three guys at the back table.
What if they invite him to join their table and I am left all alone at my small and dirty table? That would really suck. As great a start as my day got off to it was now cratering.
I tried to think of a way to make my table, as I sat by myself, look cooler than the other tables — but feared it wasn’t working. And the worst part of all is I don’t think anyone in the coffee shop even knew about the Eddie Vedder song I lip-synced so flawlessly just a few minutes earlier.
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Nov 6, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET  November is here and so is the holiday season. Holidays are the worse when it comes to temptation to eat foods we ordinarily wouldn’t. But that does not mean we should throw our fitness goals out the window til January. Here are a few statistics and helpful hints to keep you working towards your fitness goals during the holidays.
Statistics
1. Average person will gain 10-15 lbs between November 1st and January 1st
2. 75% of all candy consumed in the United States will be consumed on Halloween
3. There will be 180 million pints of alcohol consumed on New Year’s Eve
4. Average meal for Thanksgiving is 3500 calories
The Holidays
Halloween- The Sugar Holiday. Where Insulin and Glucose run rampant.
Thanksgiving- The Overeaters Anonymous Holiday. Trytophan the cause of Nap time?
Christmas- The Sugar, Fat and Santa Holiday.
New Years Eve- The Adult Beverage Holiday.
Client Survival Tips
Be active, everyday. Do NOT cancel your workouts. Now is not the time to cancel your workouts, it is the time to squeeze them in if you are busy. These are important, each one is a momentum builder. Lift weights, do a little cardio, walk your dog…something. Everyday.
Control stress. Stress makes everything worse.
Focus on weight maintenance vs. weight loss during the holidays. If you are currently overweight and want to lose weight, this is not the time to do it. Maintenance of your present weight is a big enough challenge during the holiday season. Don’t set yourself up for failure by making unrealistic goals for yourself.
Plan on NOT dieting after the New Year. Anticipation of food restriction sets you up for binge-type eating over the holidays (“after all, if I’m never going let myself eat this again after Jan. 1st, I might as well eat as much as possible now!”) Besides, restrictive diets don’t work in the long run. They increase your loss of lean body mass vs. fat, slow down your metabolism, increase anxiety, depression, food preoccupation, and binge eating, and make weight re-gain more likely.
Eat a light snack before going to holiday parties. It is not a good idea to arrive at a party famished. Not only are you more likely to overeat, but you are also less likely to resist the temptation of eating the higher fat and higher calorie foods.
Choose your beverages wisely. Alcohol is high in calories. Liquors, sweet wines and sweet mixed drinks contain 150-450 calories per glass. By contrast, water and diet sodas are calorie-free. If you choose to drink, select light wines and beers, and use non-alcoholic mixers such as water and diet soda. Limit your intake to 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks per occasion. And, watch out for calories in soda, fruit punch, and egg nog as well.
Enjoy good friends and family. Although food can be a big part of the season, it doesn’t have to be the focus. Holidays are a time to reunite with good friends and family, to share laughter and cheer, to celebrate and to give thanks. Focus more on these other holiday pleasures, in addition to the tastes of holiday foods. The important thing to remember is balance and moderation. It’s OK to eat too much once in a while.
Maintain perspective: Overeating one day won’t make or break your eating plan. And it certainly won’t make you gain weight! It takes days and days of overeating to gain weight. If you over-indulge at a holiday meal, put it behind you. Return to your usual eating plan the next day without guilt or despair.
By Mona Tailor, on Wed Nov 5, 2014 at 1:30 PM ET “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway…It’s all been decided anyway.”
 I cannot tell you the number of times I heard this phrase yesterday. “It’s all been decided anyway.” This was heard in my workplace, on the twitter-sphere, and even in the locker room of the gym!
These quotes gave away to something else bigger too. No one seemed excited about this election, regardless of what party you side with.
I remember when I registered to vote. I was a senior in high school; able to register since I would be 18 by the time it was November. I was so excited for the ability to vote and so proud I had already done so. I have voted in every election since, only missing 1 year.
I don’t remember ever being so unenthused about an election until this one. Maybe it’s the economy, or the President, or just the overall “nothing is happening” in Washington, DC attitude. Congress has been a display of gridlock with approval ratings that reflect the lack of action in our capital.
Unlike the prior decades of the 40s/50s/60s, it seems that since Watergate in the 1970s, we have become more cynical, and our faith in our government has slowly been chipped away. You run for political office now by refuting the system, and then slowly becoming part of it.
Now, I wonder if there’s anything left to chip away. The faith seems to be at a bare minimum. From what I can tell, I’m not the only one.
In this age of social media, sound bites, and concern for a particular image, is there any candidate or way to help us restore some faith in government and inspire the enthusiasm of the past? Only time will tell.
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