![]() ![]() It was some time before I realized there were genres, places where you could say things that weren’t true without losing all your friends! I’m not proud of the fact that it took me till college to figure that out. I wasn’t impressed by people’s reactions to me, so I enhanced the truth until they were and stopped before I overdid it. Storytelling was called lying when I was little. Still, I think of him sometimes, how like him I am, and it’s not terrible. He was the guy who walks in a room and everyone says “I’ll have what he’s having.” At least, that’s how it was until he started having meth. The first I inherited from my father, which is amazing because he squandered the greatest gift for leadership I’ve ever seen and was never around to pass it on. Leadership, the ability to tell a story, and the ability to learn fast. “Sure, you’ve nearly got three degrees, but can you order things according to the alphabet?” Plus, after a seven-year break from the work world, I couldn’t even get a temp company to take me seriously for an admin job sorting files and documents. You might as well put “proficient in abacus” on your resume. There is no job title left in civilization whose desired capabilities even include – let alone demand – a degree in medieval literature. The rules change for no reason, leaving those who have made it to reminisce about the good old days and those still coming up to scratch heads and wait tables. I got rejected at all but one.įashion in the academic world is every bit as brutal, capricious, and nonsensical as it is anywhere else. I applied for PhD programs with the CV of most junior faculty members up for tenure review. If I surpassed my peers by twenty times, surely I’d be recognized to be twice as good. It might have been a bad call, but I figured there was just enough meritocracy left in it that I could make it. ![]() He didn’t know anymore that the world outside was no better.Įventually, I realized there weren’t other options for someone with my training and went for the academy anyway. I took odd jobs after college, because my undergrad advisor thought the academy had become a waste. It wasn’t the first or last time that would happen. I wrote a paper that a professor responded to by telling me of the physical effects of the impression it left on him. But I was a natural at the work, and I knew it. Also, I didn’t understand money enough to know what a dumb choice I’d made. I studied medieval English literature on student loans. In college, most of my friends had parent money and studied Business Admin. I was a kid with a knack for words and a competitive steak so big that I never really stuck with anything I didn’t have natural talent for – bad personality trait for an entrepreneur. No one in my family had ever run a successful business before, or even started one as far as I knew. ![]() I probably wasn’t born to do this, by anybody’s guess. And please do connect with me on Twitter to tell me your stories or share slightly drunken rants. So, from time to time, when I have a drink, I’ll share a thing or two that might not quite come out right any other time. Because I’m a businessman, sometimes the things that matter are business-related. In me, it brings out an excess of felt affection towards those I love and an urgency to say the things that matter. ![]() For those people, a sip of whiskey brings out the truth. Some people’s inhibitions are overactive. But the first time I told a friend I loved him, even though it had been true for years, I was under an alcohol-knitted security blanket. Just a thimbleful can cause comfort, give a feeling of security, and lower inhibitions. For most people, anxiety diminishes a bit while the body gets warm. Alcohol dilates surface blood vessels while slightly depressing the central nervous system. If you don’t drink too much, a great thing happens to you. Some people do, but there’s somebody overdoing everything. It is definitely among the more pleasant-tasting alcohols and is often powerful enough to de-incentivize overdoing it. I’m surprised whiskey still has a stigma. When I do, I’ll get real about my life in business. Totally stumbled into a distillery called Chattanooga Whiskey near downtown. ![]()
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