By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 20, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
We’ve all heard some version of the story of a great basketball player who in some big game misses the clutch shot that could have won the game.
After that the player is forever haunted by that “moment” and asked over and over again by fans who recognize him, “Aren’t you the guy who ……?”
Over time the wound dissipates but never quite fully goes away.
My father wasn’t a basketball player (at least after high school). But as a former professional basketball team owner, he has had to live with a similar kind haunting basketball “moment.”
Call it the “Salina Bros Shakedown.” Call it the “Greatest sports negotiation of all time.” Call it the convergence of tenacity and blind, dumb luck. Whatever it was, it now has a final-seeming price tag of $800M.
And it’s $800M that, theoretically, my father—had my father been a different kind of person and a more ruthless kind of negotiator- may have gotten a piece of.
Yesterday I was with my dad when we ran into Joe Arnold who stopped him to do this interview. Joe does a masterful job of explaining succinctly what happened and capturing my father’s unbothered and good-humored attitude about it all.
I believe in negotiating hard and negotiating smart. Always. And my father has taught me that well. But he has also taught me to negotiate honorably with an eye toward your reputation and future business opportunities. At the end of each negotiation you have a “bottom line” business deal and a “bottom line” reflection on your character. And both are of equal importance.
In this particular negotiation there was a fluke in which had my father been focused merely on squeezing every last penny out of this deal at the expense of his reputation, he may have gotten a piece of this improbable windfall. But that would have meant sacrificing who he is and his reputation as a fair dealer with people who had trusted him and were relying on him to close the biggest deal of their lives. The entire ABA/NBA merger was being held up by the Salina brothers final demand for TV rights in perpetuity and they knew they had the NBA and ABA over a barrel and merely had to wait them out until they capitulated. And they did.
Is a person’s reputation worth $100M, $200M or even $400M dollars?
I guess the takeaway for me is that I believe that question is the wrong question. Because one’s reputation should never be for sale. Period.
And as so-called “missed opportunities” go–they should never be the cause for time-consuming and soul-draining bitterness but rather something you laugh off magnanimously and then keep moving ahead, from, lest you miss the next opportunity.
And that’s a pretty good lesson for a son to learn from his pop.
Is any of this just some sort of happy rationalization trying to pretend a missed opportunity wasn’t really wanted anyway? Probably a little. But only a little.
Because, at the end of the day, sometimes a missed shot in a basketball game, literal or figurative, is just that. And nothing more. And leaves behind an interesting story but not something to haunt or define you. After all, it’s just a game.
I attended Washington Community Fellowship when I lived in Washington D.C. But once I moved to New York, I stopped attending any kind of religious fellowship.
I have often wondered why it happened that way: Why had I wandered off the path taken by the rest of my family? What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit. I have always been someone attracted to the quantifiable and the physical. I hate to admit it. But I don’t think I would have been able to do what the Huguenots did in Le Chambon. I would have counted up the number of soldiers and guns on each side and concluded it was too dangerous.
I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power. I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary.
Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.” Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jan 16, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Secret confession
Sometimes when I am at a point in my life when it is time to reinvent myself again, I ask myself if I think I can get away with using one of my older reinvented selves and hope no one notices because I cant think of anything new to do with myself.
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I want to become a better person.
Not so much because of ambition or a sense of calling.
But because I am I feel that I am capable of better–more dignified– targeted online ads.
I am better than the current ads targeting me! And I know deep down that I have better targeted ads inside me. Ads my mom would be proud of.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jan 15, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Is it possible to prove God exists through higher mathematics?
I recently saw a discussion on this matter and it got me to thinking. Suffice it to say, that I do believe it’s possible to use higher mathematics to prove God’s existence.
And I even have first hand experience on this very matter.
No, I’m not going to get all highfalutin talking to you all fancy-like about mathematical ideas you won’t understand. Not at all.
But here’s how it happened for me. I escaped high school only having taken Algebra and Geometry. I always loved math. But once they started introducing letters into it, I figured they had just run out of practical uses for math and were trying to make it deliberately harder—or they were just showing off. After the letters started up, I just lost interest.
My only exposure to calculus was four week of pre-calculus my freshman year in college. That’s all it took for me to realize the stuff had to be Divinely inspired –because it made no logical sense to me.
But that’s not the part about calculus that convinced me to believe in God. Into my fourth week of this class –and convinced I was going to fail– I started praying nightly for God to please help me–some how, some way. And the next week it happened. My friend and mentor, junior Allen Ragle, explained to me about the college phenomenon of “dropping” a class. If you are taking a class and it turns out you hate it or it is too hard for you, no problem. You just “drop” the dang thing and all you get is a little ole “W” on your transcript. High schools don’t allow this but colleges do.
It was a religious experience for me just hearing this good news! I dropped the class the very next day and had never felt such a rush of Grace in all my young life.
15Ever since learning I could drop my pre-calculus class, I’ve never doubted that God existed. And, in fact, when I graduated college, I had a whole host of “W’s” on my college transcript to prove God’s mercy was very much alive and real in my life!
Hallelujah!
For Jerry Eifler, Lee Whitlock, Gene Thompson, Ivan Schoen, Jim Sichko and my other friends who are also well-connected with the Big Guy…. I would have included a list of friends who had likewise established themselves in the field of mathematics, but don’t seem to have any at the moment…. Which, I guess, is what happens when you leave math at pre-cal.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jan 14, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
“Want to quickly and easily get your credit score right now for free?
If you answered ‘Yes’ then click here….
Oh, wait a minute….
Let’s decode that offer.
“Would you like to pay a $30 monthly fee to have your credit score sent to you each month (nearly $400 a year if you forget to cancel) and if you try to cancel it’s a real pain in the neck because although they will sign you up in a jiffy… online, to cancel you have to call in during certain hours and remain on hold for a maddeningly long time until you speak to a customer-service representative who will essentially refuse to cancel your membership until you shout at them that, “Yes, you understand all the amazing benefits of having your score sent to you monthly and despite the fact you are an inexplicable ignoramus unable to decipher obvious commonsensical benefits to yourself and my family, you still want it cancelled?”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 13, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
My wife and I have just endured the worst flu virus either of us has ever experienced.
This was no ordinary “Stay-in-bed-and-watch-TV- flu.”
This was more of a “Don’t-speak-to-me-for-three-days-except-to-bring-me-a-cup-of-tea-on-the-third-day-or-a-copy-of-Albert-Camus’-The-Plague-but-preferably-tea-because-I-don’t-have-the-physical-strength-to-read-and-I-was-serious-about-not-speaking-to-me-seriously-oh-no-I-have-to-throw-up-again-please-just-leave-me-alone-like-I-already-asked-several-times-but-do-leave-the-book-on-Bubonic-plague-and-know–I-love-you-and–I-am-sorry-about-this-and-also-sorry-about-that-thing-I-said-several-years-ago-but-can’t-remember-now-I-will-make-it-up-to-you-if-I-survive.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jan 10, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
If you are in your 20s or 30s –or even early 40s–and feel overwhelmed and under-appreciated, I implore you to hang in there and not give up.
If you can make it to 50, everything changes. Being 50 is awesome. It’s no accident they call it “the prime of your life.” Everything comes together and you finally feel like you are, indeed, master of your fate; captain of your soul.
Being 50 is like being a senior classmen (after your parents held you back two years in kindergarten to give you an edge over the other kids). You know how everything works–and others look to you to show them. You are truly on top of your world. Finally.
Everyday you feel like you are a BMOC (Big Man On Campus) Except it’s not a campus; it’s your life. Which is even better.
The only problem with being 50 and feeling on top of the world is you have trouble remembering why you feel so together and invincible.
I have found writing down all the reasons (like the ones I just listed above) and keeping the list handy on the notepad of your smartphone or on a piece of notepaper you keep in your pocket is very helpful, if not essential.
Otherwise you just look like a blissfully happy idiot who has no idea what is going on and others will start to suspect you aren’t as together as they initially believed.
So, if you are a young adult and stressed out and depressed, the good news is it will get much easier and much better. Even if you can’t remember why.
Just hang in there. And copy this list to your smartphone notepad. Trust me on this. This list is the difference between being a C level executive at 50 and a greeter at Walmart. The two positions require the same basic skill set, except the former exudes a great deal of confidence and cocksureness. And carries a list like this in their pocket.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jan 9, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Tom Mabe’s most popular –and depressing—prank yet.
Louisvillian Tom Mabe is a very talented and funny guy. He’s the ultimate social media prankster and very clever and provocative as he pushes the comedic envelope.
His latest exploit …didn’t feel as funny as usual to me, though. Perhaps his most popular prank to date (at least in YouTube views, now over 17 million), Mabe tricks a hard drinking buddy who has passed out from intoxication (again) that he has been in a coma for 10 years and missed out on a lot of important life moments due to his excessive drinking.
It’s tough love that overlaps into cringe humor.
It is a brilliantly clever prank that was hopefully going to scare Mabe’s friend straight. The friend already has 5 DUIs and wasn’t changing his drinking habits. Tom was trying to help a friend, help protect others, and create a viral video at the same time. And I hope he succeeded with all three objectives.. The video’s viral popularity is already established.
But did it help his friend? I’m not so sure. In my view, a prank like that, by itself, rarely has a long term impact on the drinker. But the 17 million views of this video means that the secret on this heavy drinker is now out—something that most everyone knows or will soon hear about in this gentlemen’s home town.
That public intolerance for his alcohol abuse will mean he’ll have to change to stay in his current community or live elsewhere. But a few more days passed and the video prank continued to gnaw at me for some reason. My self-righteous conclusions weren’t enough to satisfy me.
There was something else going on in this video that was vaguely haunting me. And, I suspect, vaguely haunting others because several friends brought it up to me. For me the metaphor of going into a coma for 10 years and missing out on important life moments, saddened me. In some ways I am guilty of that. And I am not in a medical coma and don’t drink alcohol. But that doesn’t mean I (we) can’t go on auto-pilot, get too obsessed with work, hobbies, other distractions and miss out on some important memories with our children, spouse and friends. And that, in the end, is what I learned most from this video. It’s unintended consequences.
A prank to scare a heavy drinker straight by outing him was a very funny scheme. But what was profound –and perhaps ultimately more socially beneficial from this video–is that as much as we 17 million viewers want to laugh and feel superior to the drunken foil in this prank, I suspect a significant portion of us were simultaneously trying to conceal our sadness that we’d been outed too.
I hope Mabe’s friend does get help and get sober or at least stop driving while drinking. But whatever happens to Tom Mabe’s boozing friend, I hope this video helps change me in ways so that 10 years from now I don’t feel like portions of that time were spent in my own metaphorical coma.
Because, thanks to Tom Mabe’s prank, I now have a clearer idea of what that looks like and how horrifyingly tragic it can be.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jan 8, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
One day, I am confident, I will come to understand the female species.
At least if reincarnation really exists.
Because doing so in this lifetime isn’t looking likely, even though I have felt at numerous times that I was on the cusp of “getting it.”
But these times that I believed I was on the verge of a breakthrough of complete comprehension of the distaff side turned out instead to be what psychologists call “a delusion.” And made me feel like a marathon runner who believes he just caught sight of the finish line but as he gets closer realizes it is just another starting line.
Which is probably just as well.
As much as underatanding the female psyche sounds like a desireble goal, it would take a lot of fun out of life. And be depressing to think that they were no more mysterious than my half of our species.
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Great seques in spousal conversations.
Dec 21st 2013 10:30pm: “You have been in a mid-life crisis for a long time now, haven’t you? You think it will ever end or just keep dragging on and on?”
(Note: In case you weren’t sure, that question was posed by my wife to me, not the other way around.)
My response:
“I dunno. At some point it no longer makes sense to ever finish it.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jan 7, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Never, never, ever, ever no matter what, no matter why, no matter how lucky you are feeling or how good your “excuse” is, never, never, ever, ever go beyond the speed limit.
I won’t try to scare you about potential car accidents that can cause serious, even permanent, bodily injuries –or even death to you or another driver or a bystander. Those kind of scare tactics don’t seem to work well.
So I’m using my personal experience about something very likely to happen to you if you do speed. You could….pay attention now!
Seriously.
Pay attention because this could save your life and even your weekend. If you get caught speeding you could end up spending your entire Friday and Saturday night taking the “I Drive Safely” Traffic School course online. It is educational and a well organized and presented course.
But not the way you want to spend a Friday and Saturday night–especially just before a major holiday. The course improves your driving but not your mood. Take it from me.
Ho friggin’ ho!
So….I am easing up on the pedal. And suggest any of you who have read my cautionary tale do the same….Trust me. You don’t want to spend an entire weekend before Christmas being taught all the things you know about driving but seem to have trouble remembering when you actually get into a car and start driving.
Yesterday I was with my dad when we ran into Joe Arnold who stopped him to do this interview. Joe does a masterful job of explaining succinctly what happened and capturing my father’s unbothered and good-humored attitude about it all.
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