The endorsement by “The Donald” of Mitt Romney will amount to very little when all is said in done in the Republican primary.
To be honest, I firmly believed Trump would endorse Newt Gingrich. Why? First off, I think Trump and Newt are more aligned politically. More importantly, in the last year Trump has said Romney walked away with some money from a company he didn’t create, he closed companies and got rid of jobs, and he wasn’t in love with the job he did in Massachusetts. Trump also didn’t like the fact that Romney wasn’t a popular governor, served only one term, and didn’t like that he didn’t have high approval ratings. Trump wanted the individual running for president of the United States to be the most popular person you can have.
Read the rest of… Jason Grill: Will Trump Boost Romney?
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Feb 16, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
After prodding from several friends I’ve finally started the Zija diet.
It’s a green powder you put in water and drink periodically throughout the day.
I think.
Don’t hold me to specifics.
I bought some powder that comes in green packets. I assume they go in water and are to be drunk with some regularity.
It seems that I haven’t read the instructions –yet–and am approaching this plan intuitively. provide rare and important nutrients and suppresses appetite.
My first day I weighed myself (benchmarking) and I drank a glass of water with the powder. It tasted all right.
I waited 30 minutes and then weighed myself again. Nothing. In fact I had gained a quarter of a pound.
The second day I didn’t eat much to avoid having to drink more green water, although I did drink a little later in the day. It was the batch I’d made the day before and tasted awful a day later.
It’s now been a week since I started the Zija diet. The past 5 days I haven’t drunk any of the powder bc it tasted so bad that second day. But I’ve still lost 4 pounds.
This stuff really works! Don’t know how exactly but I’m a believer.
Hoekstra needs to spend three minutes watching the Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad. It captures, much more powerfully and far more honestly, the real Chinese challenge.
The long-term China threat is not that they finance our debt – we should blame our lack of fiscal discipline and our aversion toward hard choices on spending for that–but the fact that we’re losing ground to a country that is poorer and much less equitable than we are. They are still out performing us and out strategizing us in the fields of advanced manufacturing and engineering, and their top-heavy, command and control economy is proving more supple than our own capital markets. That ought to be a gut-check that Democrats and Republicans should run ads about.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Is Pete Hoekstra’s Ad Racist?
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Feb 15, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
It’s not enough for Mark Zuckerberg to take over our lives with FB. Now he wants to play God and tell us who we can and can’t be friends with.
Facebook just told me I’m about to max out on “friends” and they soon won’t allow me to make any new “friends” unless I delete a current friend to make room for the new one.
Wow!
Really, Mark?
Think of the confusing issues you will now force people to deal with.
Can I still make friends outside of Facebook?
If so, will they feel less of a “friend” since they can’t be a FB friend too?
Is there a name for these new FB-friendless friends?
Are there tips on how to navigate these relationships so these “friends” with asterisks, so to speak, don’t feel further marginalized?
Is it insulting to introduce non-FB friends to other non-FB friends bc their non-FB friend status gives them something in common?
Are non-FB friend friends less demanding on us?
Can we use the ” FB max out” excuse to avoid making a new non-FB friend we are uncertain about?
If I delete a current FB friend to make room for a new non-FB friend I’ll like better, what kind of fall out can be expected?
If I’m wrong and the new non-FB friend is a disappointment, can I switch back without the old deleted FB friend knowing?
How do I delete Tom, the guy in a white shirt who was my first and an automatic friend for all FB new users? I don’t even know who he is! Oh wait, that was MySpace.
Maybe my new excess friends can meet on MySpace. But how do I explain Tom to them?
C’mon, Mark! Making friends virtually shouldn’t be this hard. Maybe those guys in the movie Social Network who claimed you stole their idea know some ways to have more friends on FB. Unless you really are that much smarter and can figure it out first.
(That was mean for me to say….but not as mean as you forcing me to tell people they can’t be my friend “just because.”)
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Feb 14, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
From the heart? Or from Hallmark?
I’ll be buying a nice Valentine’s Day card for my wife.
The big kind that requires a special envelope big enough to for the over-sized card, ribbon, and frilly stuff attached to it.
But I’m also going to do something else.
I’m going to write–in my own words—a personal message of how I feel about my wife, how much I love her and appreciate her.
Sure, I’ll find the card that most closely says what I mean.
But if I don’t write something myself, I’ve outsourced to Hallmark (or another card company) the job of telling my spouse what she means to me—and that just doesn’t seem right somehow.
Some people might say they aren’t eloquent and prefer let the card speak for them. But a simple and non-eloquent personal message from the heart beats the most eloquent message written by another for the one we love any day of the week.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 4:30 PM ET
My all-time favorite job interview story.
About a decade ago I heard this story from a colleague in NJ, a manager I admired greatly. He was speaking about how he hired people and used this story as a reference to make his point.
A large corporation was hiring for an executive management position and had narrowed the field to two. The executive team would now take each finalist to dinner at a nice restaurant to get “a feel” for the person and if they fit in with the company’s culture.
The first dinner was with a male, we’ll call him Candidate Jones.
Dinner with the execs could not have gone smoother….Jones was warm, witty, engaging and smart. When he ordered he felt he ordered appropriately, had impeccable manners and fit in seamlessly with the other execs. As Jones himself put it to a friend afterward, “I knocked it out of the park!” Adding “The job is mine.”
Except Jones didn’t get the job.
Why? The executive team explained that although Jones ingratiated himself to them, they noticed that when it came to the coat check lady, the waitress, waiter and bus boy, he was condescending —even rude.
The exec team explained, “We are hiring a manager for people under him or her and not someone who will be engaging with us all day each day. We just don’t feel you are a good fit for that position.”
And that, as they say, was that.
Does this really matter? I can attest that since hearing that story I watch closely how each person I deal with treats the wait staff when at a restaurant. It’s a powerfully effective gauge.
So, want to move up in the world? Treat the waitress and busboy with the same respect you are showing your boss (or future boss), and you just may receive the respect from your boss that you are seeking.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Favorite story on workaholism.
About 20 years ago I bought a daily mediation book on keeping balance in your life if you have a tendency to lose yourself in your work and fail in other important areas in your life.
It didn’t help me as much as I’d hoped but here is the one reading
I think of often and chuckle to myself.
“Every night Johnny’s dad would come home with an overstuffed briefcase–papers falling out and scattering and dad scurrying to keep everything together to work on later that night. And each night the son would watch knowing it meant less time with his dad who would be working into the evening.
One night, though, Johnny had an idea.
When is frantic dad walked in the door, arms drooping from papers and binders, Johnny offered, “Dad, I’ve been watching you work so hard every night after work trying to just keep up. And I’m really proud of you. But dad, it may be time for you to be put in the “slow group” at work.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
Finally!
2 years ago I was with a group of businesspeople and we were asked to respond to some questions.
One was “If you could go out to dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be?”
Most people wrote down people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump.
I didn’t. Nothing about either of those men makes me hungry.
I wrote down Nelson Mandela but didn’t mean it. In fact, it had never once crossed my mind that I’d like to have dinner with Nelson Mandela. And hasn’t since. I was just trying to impress the moderator.
In fact, no one came to mind and that bothered me.
But now I know the answer. Donald Fagen (formerly of Steely Dan). I’d genuinely like to hang out with him for a night–have dinner and pick his mind and experience his rich imagination. Even more so than Nelson Mandela. A lot more.
Now….where would I like to eat? Hope this doesn’t take me another 2 years to figure out?
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET
What does it mean to grow up?
When my son was four years old we were up late one night looking for something to do.
He grabbed a chess set and asked, “Want to play!?”
Taken aback by his enthusiasm, I said I did but admitted I really didn’t know how and he’d have to teach me.
He said it was easy and to sit down and he’s show me.
He divided the pieces and set them up in a way I didn’t recognize. I was waiting to be amazed that my 4 year old already knew how to play chess.
His first instruction was a shocker, though. He said what we do is slide the pieces across the board and try to “knock each others pieces down—like in bowling.”
I loved it! “Alright!” I said. “I think I’m gonna like this chess stuff.”
We played for about 30 minutes firing pieces back and forth. He added a few new rules (clarifications, really) along the way that ensured he would “win.” Which was cool.I wanted him to.
I was just thrilled to finally learn how to play chess. It always looked complicated and slow. But turns out it really isn’t. At least to a 4 year old.
A few years later my son taught me how grown ups play chess. It’s OK but, as I suspected, complicated and slow. I like the way 4 year olds play better. Not everything about being a grown up is all it’s cracked up to be.
The endorsement by “The Donald” of Mitt Romney will amount to very little when all is said in done in the Republican primary.
