By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Oct 29, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
You know that feeling early in the morning …..that sinking feeling that something isn’t quiet right?
That something isn’t working….something feels worrisome and troublesome….but you just can’t put your finger on exactly what it is?
And then you rack your brain to pinpoint the cause of the general disease you are feeling…
You try to figure out the reason for this vague sense of impending doom. And you realize that these discomforting and disquieting feeling you are experiencing stem from the realization that “you” are are again–for another day–still involved in your life.
And just aren’t sure how to say to yourself…. to politely suggest that you, just, ahem, you know…kind of…try to…..well…. lie low today in your own life and not screw things up again?
And you wish you could slink out door without yourself noticing and wanting to tag along?
You know that feeling?
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It is important to make the most of each day….and hope to have at least one life moment each day that is worthy of the highlight reel.
Why?
Think about it. What if we get to the end of our lives and it’s our time and up rolls our life’s highlights before our eyes…..you know, those flashes of our the precious, thrilling, sacred and fabulous moments from our life….and what if instead of lasting for the usual 30 seconds, ours only lasts for, say, 17 seconds? And then stops.
Well, I’d be really ticked and spend my last 13 seconds wishing I’d done more exciting stuff when I was younger.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Oct 28, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
The older I get the more I realize that the most important purpose of longevity isn’t being given the opportunity to accomplish more so I may want less —but rather being given the opportunity to forgive more so that I might judge less.
Life experience disappointingly fails to provide us with a growing insight into how uniquely superior we are to others.
And instead instructs us about how very …similar we are to those around us –and how capable we are of doing ourselves the things we fear the most and disdain most loudly.
This awareness is usually diverted before it arrives and we write it off as something foreign and separate from us.
If we can instead embrace these seemingly unsavory parts of ourselves and learn from them we are then able to replace shame with wisdom –and judgment with understanding.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Oct 24, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
An important PSA (public service announcent)
It has been nearly three years since my unfortunate incident at Speedway where I was so absent-minded I left the gas pump in the gas tank and tried to pull away before the pump pulled out loudly and flapped around. No gas sprayed but it created a hard to explain spectacle before the manager kindly waived me away in a manner that said “Just please go to Thorton’s next time you need to fill up.”
And yet three long years later –without incident–every time I get gas I relive this fear as I start to pull away.
Call it PTSDFLGPIGTADO (Post traumatic stress disorder from leaving gas pump in gas tank and driving off).
It is real. And, frankly, the acronym sounds even worse than I expected.
So, please, when you get gas, replace the gas pump before driving off. For the station owner. And for your own mental health.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 23, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
The American Basketball Association was in some ways more about what it means to be an American than it was about basketball. It had nothing to do with Associations. That was just an unfortunate name borrowed by copying the NBA’s final initial. But it had everything to do with thinking the unthinkable. And then trying the impossible. Just because we can. And not caring what others said or did.
Thanks to David Vance and my mother for forwarding this video clip to me just now.
Put it this way. This is an HBO special for “dreamers.” Make that “Dreamers” with a capital “D.”
Not for the keepers of the status quo ante….or defenders of the way things have always been done. And certainly not for those threatened by those who dare to ask, “Is there a better way?” –and greet such impudence with sneers and nervous laughter.
It’s not for any of them. (Watch Red Auerbach late in the show try to dismiss the ABA as a curious asterisk in basketball history and failed misadventure propped up briefly due only to the presence of Dr J….As another well-quoted dreamer would say, “The lady doth protest too much.”)
And yet….and yet….
No professional sports experiment I can think of is a greater reflection of the entrepreneurial mind and (more important) entrepreneurial spirit than the creation of the American Basketball Association. It is –was–a uniquely American experiment. If there had been a movie about the ABA it would have been a mirror image of Tucker: The Man and His Dream. But there wasn’t. But there is this archived HBO special.
And because history is written by the victors, in the lofty chambers of those who retell basketball history from on high, the ABA was merely something of a curious asterisk to the NBA.
But for those of us who lived closer to it and had no vested interest in rewriting basketball history and, yes, were ourselves cast under the spell of the ABA dreamers, well….we know better. We not only dreamed but saw and believed and eventually knew. We learned as a matter of course as an ABA fan that the impossible was possible. And even for a few moments could be sublime. And that has never left us.
And although we still have no vested interest in rewriting basketball history, we know that no other basketball innovation changed the game more (and for the better) than did a little dream that germinated in a few small cities like Louisville, KY nearly 50 years ago.
We won’t ever get the respect we deserve. History doesn’t work like that. But we have something even better. The memories of some of the greatest basketball ever played on our planet–and played with creative abandon because, as Bob Costas said, “We had nothing to lose.” And today we can take quiet pride in seeing the stodgy long shadow of tradition of the NBA has been replaced by the sunlight of what we know was someone else’s impossible dream. And we saw it first. And proudly cheered it along.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Oct 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
JYB Sr., JYB Jr. and JYB III circa 1972
My grandfather Brown was (and still is –posthumously 28 years later) the family patriarch. And for pretty good reason. He was very disciplined, accomplished, learned, pulled himself from poverty as the son of a tenant farmer to achieve renown as a trial lawyer and being in debt like most well-to-do people, and –most of all–was a character with a seeming limitless number of memorable stories about him. Many of them true.
A story my mother liked to tell about him was when she had just married my father she sat in on one of his biggest trials that year. It was a packed courtroom and when a crucial piece of evidence was admitted against his client, my grandfather said, “Judge, that is inadmissible according to KRE 802 (11).” This impressed everyone attending with his encyclopaedic memory of the rules of evidence.
Afterwards, my mom asked him, “Mr Brown, do you really know what KRE 802 (11) says?” And my grandfather responded, “No, honey. But neither does the judge.”
Love that story. Even if it isn’t true or entirely true. As Mark Twain said,
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Oct 21, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I have found that, as a general rule of thumb, people usually have to “feel the heat” before “they see the light.”
Nothing seems more conducive to the attainment of wisdom than the receipt (or threat of receipt) of a painfully humiliating lesson.
Which means that, as a general rule of thumb, the wisest among us are also the ones among us who have accumulated the highest number of painfully humiliating lessons in the course of their lives.
So, if you want to be a wise person, ask yourself What painfully humiliating lesson am I pursuing today?
Or perhaps experiencing right now without even knowing it?
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Oct 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
The 3% secret.
When you meet someone fir the first time and look them up and down, side to side, and even try peering into their soul (the shallow and deep ends) and get that awkward vibe that you only like about 3% of them, here’s the trick: Focus in and focus hard on just that 3% and somehow–almost magically–you will find another 3% that you like before the end of your first conversation.
And here is the bonus part.
If you meet someone new and at first glance only like about 3% of them, chances are good that they only like about 2.5% of you.
And by doubling the amount you like them by to 6%, that almost always doubles the amount they like you by to a full 5%.
Which gives them more things they like about you that they can focus on.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 16, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Bad cropping doesn’t mean a picture is useless.
For example, in this badly mangled cropping job, I get an idea of what I would look like in a Bhurka.
And reinforces that I should never try to wear one.
And I learn that my right eyebrow looks about a decade younger than my left and that I should favor my confident and younger-looking eyebrow the next decade until it catches up with the wiser-looking but withered left eyebrow.
You try to figure out the reason for this vague sense of impending doom. And you realize that these discomforting and disquieting feeling you are experiencing stem from the realization that “you” are are again–for another day–still involved in your life.
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