THEN: Secretary of State (KY), 1996-2004; Candidate for Lieutenant Governor, 2007
NOW: JYB3 Group (Owner) -public affairs consulting firm; Miller Wells law firm (Of counsel)
Full Biography:link
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Nov 1, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
A moment of self-reflection.
You know the ones that make you think about where you are in your life and if you are good enough.
We all have them.
Just now I am parked in Staples parking lot waiting for store to open. I’m in my maroon Honda Accord, empty sacks of Chik-fil-A on floor. I am 50 years old wearing khaki pants with spin dried button down striped shirt and wavy disheveled hair.
While waiting, I have laptop open and posting on Facebook about my dog going to the bathroom in my office this morning.
Then a shiny jet black regal looking car drives up beside me. It is a BMW and seems to clear it’s throat so I will notice. The driver is also about 50 and is wearing pin stripe dark suit and heavily starched white dress shirt with striped tie with a tie clip. His hair is combed back immaculately in perfect rows standing at attention proudly with just the right amount of product. Thin frame bifocals and a serious stern look as he looks straight ahead waiting for Staples to open.
I hope he looks over at me and reflects for a few moments and asks himself, “How did I get to be such a loser?”
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Oct 31, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
We often confuse our primary task to be our ability to make the “right” decision …and avoid at all costs making a “wrong” decision.
But life doesn’t really work that way. We don’t live in a world that deterministic, like playing the game show “Let’s Make a Deal” with Monty Hall and we have to choose behind one of three doors to determine if we go home with a brand new car or ragged looking Billy goat.
In the real world the important thing is to make a decision —and then “make it right.” It’s what we do “after” the decision is made that matters most. Not the decision itself.
Oh, and one other thing. If a decision and your efforts don’t pan out, nobody said you can’t change your mind. And then change it again. Just remember if you do, the new decision is only the starting point not the final destination.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 30, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Point, Counterpoint: a deep philosophical debate with Rene Descartes (dead) and John Brown (not dead but bored and wasting time on a frivolous post.)
Mr. Descartes will go first:
“I think, therefore, I am”
–Rene Descartes
John Brown on rebuttal:
“Sure. That sounds really smart at first, but come on. Really? I mean….it doesnt even stand to reason. For example, some people think too much. That doesnt mean they exist too much, right?
Other people only think sometimes. We don’t say they only exist sometimes.
Do we? I don’t.
And some people dont think at all, but still exist and continue to show up at family reunions. I know this for a fact. I was one of them for about 18 months in the early1980’s and still got invited to and attended a family reunion.
Maybe a better formulation could be, “I got invited to attend my family reunion, therefore, I am.” But then what about those living in cultures that don’t celebrate family reunions or families where the family member who usually hosts the family reunions has had it and finally says “I am not doing this anymore. I am sick of all you ungrateful jerks. Let someone else have it at their house next time.” This happens. A lot. What about them? They still exist, right.
Maybe Descartes would have made his point more validly by saying, “I sometimes try to sound like a know-it-all by saying things that sound really profound even though they really aren’t, therefore I am irritating and get on people’s nerves.”
If Descartes had gone with this formulation, I doubt anyone would have challenged him and we wouldn’t even be having this debate right now.
And I didn’t even have to think too hard to completely disprove Descartes’ theory. And that is pretty cool– whether or not I can prove I exist.
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?
===
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 3:00 PM ET
Click here to BUY MY BOOK!
Two of my favorite books are The Bible and Musings from the Middle.
You are probably saying to yourself, “John, I know you wrote one of those books, right?”
Well, yes. I sure did. And thanks for remembering. (It was the latter book, of course.)
Now, I am not saying that the two books have anything even remotely in common. They don’t.
Is Musings from the Middle a great book? No. An important book? No. Not at all. A well written book? Not really. A good book? Not if you are sober while reading it. Is it even an insignificant book (as opposed to a book completely devoid of any substance)? Arguably but it is a very weak argument and, frankly, more of a frivolous musing.
But here’s the thing. The Bible has, I believe, 66 Books. And at times can get a little heavy trodding reading it. Wouldn’t it have helped to have had an extra book –just one–called “Musings?” If for no other reason just to break things up a little?
Maybe “Musings from Mathusula.” He lived a long time and would have had lots to muse about.
Imagine kids learning the books of the Bible. “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Musings, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth.” It just flows, doesn’t it? OK, maybe not the first time you read it but conceivably it could grow on you over time.
Granted it is impossible to compete with Genesis and Exodus but most Biblical scholars would surely agree we could all use a mental break and a few laughs after Leviticus and before plowing into Numbers.
The Book of Musings wouldn’t teach anything. Just serve as a kind of a palette cleanser.
Well, an extra book of the Bible titled Musings is not going to happen. But you can still get the book Musings from the Middle, albeit completely separate from the Bible. And that is unfortunately probably the only way it will ever be sold.
And even though it wasn’t written by Mathusela people tell me I have Mathusula’s sense of humor.
Not really. I just made that up. But it is already a shameless sales pitch, so why not throw that in. Mostly I am just trying to get my sales rank on Amazon.com higher than 2000 times Mathusela’s age and figured since the Bible is selling so well…..
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.”
Then a shiny jet black regal looking car drives up beside me. It is a BMW and seems to clear it’s throat so I will notice. The driver is also about 50 and is wearing pin stripe dark suit and heavily starched white dress shirt with striped tie with a tie clip. His hair is combed back immaculately in perfect rows standing at attention proudly with just the right amount of product. Thin frame bifocals and a serious stern look as he looks straight ahead waiting for Staples to open.
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